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PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 
AND EARLY CRITICISMS 

(A WORK OF NEGATION) 



BY 
A. S. GARRETSON 




BOSTON 

SHERMAN, FRENCH & COMPANY 

1912 



. Gr2> 



Copyright, 1912 
Sherman, French &> Company 



gCI.A3l9T25 



TO 

THE MEMORY OF 

PROFESSOR H. C. POWERS 

CURATOR OF THE ACADEMY OF 

SCIENCE AND LETTERS OF 

SIOUX CITY, IOWA. 



It is conceivable that religion may be morally 
useful without being intellectually sustainable. 

—J. S. Mill. 

Is there a unity between universal mind and ex- 
ternal nature? 

— Aristotle. 

How can that which is eternal be created in time? 

— Bishop Berkeley. 

Do "right" and "wrong" exist by nature or by 
institution ? 



The fierceness of the lion is not expended in fight- 
ing with its own kind; the sting of the serpent is not 
aimed at the serpent; the monsters of the sea, and 
the fishes, vent their rage only on those of a different 
species. But with man, — by Hercules ! most of his 
misfortunes are occasioned by man. 

— Pliny. 



CHAPTER HEADS 

PROLOGUE 

I 

HISTORICAL SUMMARY 

JESUS — PAUL — THE GOSPELS — FATHERS OF THE 
CHURCH — THE NICENE COUNCIL — THE REFOR- 
MATION 

II 

CRITICISMS 

PHILO — JUSTUS — JOSEPHUS — PLINY — PLU- 
TARCH—SENECA—TACITUS—PLINY, THE CON- 
SUL — LUCIAN — SUETONIUS — JUVENAL — APU- 
LEIUS — EUSEBIUS — CELSUS — JULIAN 

HI 

SIBYLLINE BOOKS— THE LOGOS— NEO- 
PLATONISM— MOHAMMEDANISM 

IV 
THE SCHOOLS OF GREECE 

V 
PARALLELS— EARLY BELIEFS— MIRACU- 
LOUS CONCEPTIONS 

VI 
THE NAZARENE CHURCH 

VII 
" STROMATA " 

APOTHEOSIS — THE RESURRECTION — ARIANISM — 
" THEOTOKOS " — THE TRINITY. 

VIII 
DUALISM 



CONTENTS 

PROLOGUE 



Page 

AGNOSTICISM 18 

BELIEFS 7 

FAITH 12 

MARTYRDOM 11 

MARTYRDOM OF ST. VINCENT 17 

POLYTHEISM 13 

PROPHECY 12 

RELICS 16 

RITES 10 

CHAPTER I 

ATTITUDE OF CONSTANTINE, THE 36 

ATTITUDE OF HADRIAN, THE 34 

DECREE OF MILAN 42 

FATHERS OF THE CHURCH 26 

GREEK CHURCH, THE 44 

GOSPEL, ORAL AND TRADITIONAL 28 

INSPIRATION 31 

NAZARENES, THE 28 

NEW TESTAMENT CANON, THE' 40 

NICENE COUNCIL AND CREED 36 

SYNOPTIC GOSPELS 24 

CHAPTER II 

CRITICISMS: 

Apuleius 98 

Aurelius 69 

Celsus 70 

Dionysius 100 

Domitian 66 

Epictetus 58 

Eusebius 100 

Hierocles 69 

Josephus 49 

Julian 97 

Justinus 65 

Justus 46 

Juvenal 63 



CONTENTS 

Page 

Lucian 66 

Martial 65 

Numenius 99 

Philo 45 

Phlegon 99 

Pliny 49 

Pliny, the Consul 58 

Plutarch 58 

Seneca 47 

Suetonius 65 

Tacitus 61 

Talmud, The 47 

Trajan, Emperor 61 

EXTANT LETTERS OF JESUS 101 

GREEK TEXT OP THE GOSPEL CHANGED .... 55 

LOGOS, THE 46 

CHAPTER III 

LOGOS, THE 106 

MOHAMMEDANISM 113 

NEOPLATONISM 108 

SARACEN PHILOSOPHERS 119 

SIBYLLINE BOOKS 103 

CHAPTER IV 

AQUINAS, ST. THOMAS, ATTITUDE OF 153 

CHRISTIAN ETHICS 183 

CYNICS, THE 126 

CYRENAIC PHILOSOPHERS, THE 136 

DECREE OF GALERIUS 168 

EPICUREANS, THE 135 

ETHICS OF HENRY GEORGE, THE 186 

ETHICS OF LUCRETIUS 139 

ETHICS OF ROUSSEAU, THE 189 

ETHICS OF THOS. JEFFERSON, THE 190 

HUMANISTS, THE . . . . 151 

INQUISITION, THE 173 

MARTYRDOM OF: 

Bruno . . . 170 

Hypatia 170 

Huss, John 171 

James, the Brother of Jesus . , 166 

Jesus 166 

John the Baptist 166 



CONTENTS 

Page 

Justin Martyr 167 

Maccabees, The 160 

Mani 165 

Polycarp 166 

Savonarola 172 

Servetus . 171 

Socrates 156 

St. Cyprian 168 

Stephen , 166 

PERIPATETICISM AT BAGDAD 149 

PERIPATETICISM AT CORDOVA 150 

PERIPATETICS, THE 143 

PLATO 125 

PLINY THE EPICUREAN 140 

PYTHAGOREANS, THE 122 

REFORMATION, THE 154 

RENAISSANCE, THE 154 

SOPHISTS, THE 124 

STOICS, THE 129 

UTILITARLVNISM 185 

CHAPTER V 

DEMONS 207 

EARLY BELIEFS 206 

MIRACULOUS CONCEPTIONS 214 

MARTYRDOM OF PEREGRIN 207 

PARALLELS 194 

SUPERNATURAL OCCURRENCES 195 

SUPERNATURAL VOICES 211 

TWO SACRIFICES MADE TO THE GODS 198 

TWO OPINIONS.— ATHANASIUS AND HIEROCLES . 200 



CHAPTER VI 

CHARACTER OF EARLY PREACHING 240 

DESCENDANTS OF JESUS 238 

GOSPELS OF GENTILE ORIGIN 236 

NAZAREENE CHURCH, THE 238 

CHAPTER VII 

APOTHEOSIS 243 

ARIANISM 254 

BIOGRAPHY OF APOLLONIUS, BY PHILOSTRATUS 244 
PARALLEL FROM LUCIAN 268 



CONTENTS 

Page 
PERSONATION OF JESUS ON THE STAGE AT 

ALEXANDRIA 270 

RESURRECTION, THE 249 

THEOTOKOS 259 

TRINITY, THE 266 

TWO GREEK ADJECTIVES 258 

CHAPTER VIII 

DUALISM 273 



PROLOGUE 

Christianity embraces the best ethical thought 
and precepts of any system of religion, that has 
thus far been conceived. It has elevated man 
by giving him elevated ideals. Whether its 
esoteric doctrines be true or not makes no differ- 
ence in its effect on living men; it is the splendid 
idealism of Christianity that makes men better, 
for men are in degree good as they in degree 
follow, portray and live good ideals. 

Cicero states that, — "Rome was victorious 
over the Carthagenians and the Greeks because 
Rome believed in the immortal gods." The wise 
and humane Pliny always began the day's busi- 
ness, whether in the Roman Senate or in the 
seclusion of his estate at Laurentum, with 
"grateful prayer and invocation to the gods." 
These men were good, because their thoughts and 
their ideals were good. The prophet said truly: 
"As a man thinketh so is he." 

MYSTICISM 

At the outset, the state of mind which pre- 
vailed among the masses of the people over the 
Roman Empire, at the time Jesus lived and taught 
in Judea should be considered. It was an age 
of superstition. The learned and illiterate alike 
worshiped the gods, or the forces of nature which 



% PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

the gods represented. Only a few philosophers, 
largely those of the Greek schools, had a higher 
conception of the Author of the Universe and 
His laws, and their conceptions were generally 
couched in the most abstruse propositions. It 
was an age of hero worship. Augustus had been 
apotheosized, and a temple built in Rome for his 
formal worship. All the emperors of Rome from 
Augustus to Constantine claimed divine honors 
of their subjects. The people everywhere bowed 
at the shrine of renown and power. We know, 
too, that it is characteristic of human nature 
that, as we recede from an impressive event, its 
glamour becomes more pronounced; that our 
imaginations paint it in brighter colors and give 
to it a more exaggerated form and meaning. 
This is especially true of all tradition, and the 
poet has well said: "Distance lends enchantment 
to the view." 

We shall see that Peter, "The stone on which 
the Christian Church is built," in common with 
many others of his associates, could neither read 
nor write; and that, "Mark was his interpreter." 
We shall also ascertain that the gospel was an 
oral gospel, without form and without creed, 
until Paul began to write his epistles, about 
thirty-two years after the crucifixion of Jesus ; 
and that the Synoptic gospels were written much 
later. It also appears that St. Luke, — author 
of the third gospel and of the "Acts of the 
Apostles" — St. Mark, — author of the second 



PROLOGUE 3 

gospel — and the apostle Paul, had neither seen 
nor heard Jesus and depended wholly on tradi- 
tion for their information touching Him and His 
life and teachings. If Paul had not carried the 
gospel to the Gentiles, the religion of Jesus would 
have been confined to a sect of the Jews. Jesus 
gave his command to the twelve disciples, saying: 
"Go not into the way of the Gentiles and into 
any city of the Samaritans enter ye not, but go 
rather to the lost sheep of the House of Israel." 
After His resurrection, He is said to have given 
a more general commission, but, as between the 
two commands, we should hold to the former one 
made in the flesh. 

It will be apparent, too, that the New Testa- 
ment canon was made from an accumulation of 
sacred writings, and that decision was reached 
by majority vote of the delegates present at the 
councils of Hippo and Carthage, A. D. 393-397. 
Up to that time, no authoritative canon existed. 
One made earlier, without authority and general 
consent, was known as "The Muratorian Frag- 
ment," A. D. 170, which does not concur, however, 
with the New Testament canon as now made up. 

There were no gospels written until after 
Nero's persecution of the sect known, in Judea, 
as the "Nazarenes," and in the Asiatic provinces 
and probably in Rome also, as "Christians." 
The coloring which this persecution gave to the 
views of those who wrote the gospels, while under 
its influence, or in its environment, must be consid- 



4 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

ered, as well as tradition with its natural sequence. 

It is easy to determine what would naturally 
and ultimately follow from one credulous man re- 
lating the miraculous occurrences in the work and 
life of Jesus to another credulous man, and the 
latter, in turn, relating those events to an as- 
semblage of credulous men, and so on, for thirty- 
two or more years, when Paul's epistles appeared, 
and from that time on, until the Synoptic gos- 
pels were written, when the works and doctrines 
of Jesus, as interpreted, not by the Nazarene 
Christians, but rather by Gentile converts and 
Greek theologians, had crystallized into form. 
The moral precepts and ethical conceptions 
taught by Jesus, would likely not be exaggerated 
by recounting them from year to year, as these 
would not stimulate the imaginations of men as 
did the accounts of the miracles said to have been 
wrought by Jesus ; therefore, we probably have 
the moral precepts substantially as given by Him. 

An historian of that time relates circumstances 
of Emperor Vespasian having cured a lame man; 
of having given back sight to a blind man, and 
of having wrought many and various miraculous 
cures, all in much the same manner, too, as Jesus 
is reported to have done. The historian Phil- 
ostratus relates how Apollonius of Tyana raised 
the dead body of a woman to life, in Rome ; and 
Josephus relates, with all seriousness, that the 
Sea of Pamphylia opened to let Alexander and 
his army pass through. We certainly do not 



PROLOGUE 5 

believe these reports, though coming from ac- 
credited historians. Why, then, should we be- 
lieve accounts of unnatural and unreasonable oc- 
currences coming down to us from tradition, and, 
perchance, colored by religious enthusiasm? 

It is also to be borne in mind that many ante- 
Nicene theologians did not esteem Jesus to be 
more than a prophet and teacher; nor did the 
historians of His time believe that He possessed 
the characteristics which were accorded, or as- 
cribed, to Him; first, by a coterie of friends and 
acquaintances, and later, in a more formal man- 
ner, by the apostles. 

Understanding these conditions and circum- 
stances, an effort may be made properly to esti- 
mate the value of Christian doctrine as it relates to 
supernatural occurrences, to inspiration and to its 
many unusual claims. Any proposition outside of 
and beyond human experience and understanding 
cannot be accepted with safety or confidence. 

ATTITUDE 

Every religion has created its God. The Jews 
probably had the best ideals, and therefore 
created the best Deity of any people. But when 
the magnitude and complexity of this world of 
matter, — the grandeur of the solar system, with 
its eight major planets moving swiftly in orderly 
paths around the sun ; and the illimitable ex- 
panse of space, with its uncounted systems of 
suns and planets, are considered, the anthro- 



6 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

pomorphous God of the Jews does not rise to 
a true conception of the Creator and Master of 
the Universe. The majority of Christian people, 
when they lift up their thoughts and voices in 
prayer, have before their minds a more exalted 
Being than the God of Moses and Aaron. 

Many worship an Ideal — an Ethical Ideal. 
Some personify this Ideal and call the personifica- 
tion "Jesus." 

Lyman Abbott says: — "In worship we have a 
personal perception of the Infinite." Yet who has 
perceived the Infinite? 

Max Muller states : "Religion is a perception 
of the Infinite under such manifestations as are 
able to influence the moral character of man." 
Can any one say truly that the Infinite Being 
has manifested Himself to him? In the final 
analysis of worship, a proper value must be put 
upon our emotions and our judgment, and then 
choose between them. We may at this point 
inquire: are the emotions primary sources of 
moral life? Or, are they not rather the primary 
sources of religious life? Morality being older 
and better than religion, a religion is good only 
so far as it is supported by morality. We may, 
therefore, affirm that morality is born of the 
judgment and experience of the race, and is in- 
dependent of religious belief. 

Matthew Arnold holds : "Religion is conduct 
touched by emotion." This definition fits an 
ideal religion, but Christianity is something more 



PROLOGUE 7 

than this, it is "conduct touched by emotion," 
plus supernaturalism. It is this supernatural- 
ism in Christianity that I seek to oppose. I have 
no serious criticisms to make of the ethical teach- 
ings of Christianity. 

BELIEFS 

It is a primary proposition in logic which 
affirms that "where there is contradiction there 
is falsehood." The early Christian Fathers were 
ever in disagreement in the interpretation of 
Christian doctrine and held contrary opinions 
touching the personality and attributes of Jesus. 

The decrees of the early Church councils 
affirmed radically different doctrine from age to 
age. Doctrinal propositions that were con- 
sidered and condemned as heretical at Antioch in 
the third century, became the cardinal articles in 
the creed made at Nicaea a century later. The 
doctrine held and advocated by Origen and Tertul- 
lian in the second century was largely condemned 
by Athanasius, Lactantius and St. Augustine in 
the fourth century. Each group was, in its day, 
the embodiment of orthodox Christianity. 

An early body of Christians held that Jesus 
was divine, only from the moment of His bap- 
tism. Another body of Christians baptized its 
converts in the name of Jesus only, and did not 
regard the claims of Nazarene Christianity se- 
riously. The Marcionites and the followers of 



8 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

Appels, did not believe the Jewish scriptures, but 
worshiped Jesus as a divinity. The Docetae be- 
lieved that Jesus had only a phantom body, that 
His crucifixion had an appearance only, and that 
there could have been no physical suffering and 
resurrection. There were five different bodies of 
Christians, during the first three centuries, which 
held to this view, on the ground that it is irra- 
tional to believe that the Godhead could have 
suffered. The Ebionites, a Jewish sect, organ- 
ized immediately after the crucifixion of Jesus, 
if not previous thereto, accepted the moral teach- 
ings of Jesus, but denied that His conception 
and birth were miraculous. The Carpocratians, 
a body of Alexandrian Christians, believed in the 
doctrine of the pre-existence of souls, that the 
greatest wisdom and power were possessed by 
him who could remember and cherish his former 
incarnations, and who possessed an unshaken 
faith in a final reunion with God. They con- 
ceived Jesus to have been such a one. Many of 
the Gnostic Christians held to this belief. 

The Montanists, A. D. 200, opposed institu- 
tional, or Catholic, Christianity and sought 
guidance by and through their own Gentile 
prophets. With them prophecy was to continue 
until Jesus and the millennium should come. 
There were three prophets that arose in this body 
of Christians. One of the Montanist churches 
in Phrygia became an oracle similar to the pagan 
oracle at Dodona and spake as the Sibyls had 



PROLOGUE 9 

spoken. The doctrines and precepts were good, 
but the means employed to proclaim them were 
fraudulent. The Montanist body of Christians 
was very strong and pointed with pride, in the 
fourth century, to its considerable accessions of 
bishops and influential theologians from the 
Catholic body, and to the large number of its 
martyrs. The Valentinians, a very important 
body of Christians (A. D. 140), held that the 
conceptions of Christianity were symbolic only. 
The Manichaeans united Gnostic Christianity 
with Buddhism. The great St. Augustine was a 
member of this cult for nine years. Justinian, 
the Christian emperor, decreed the death penalty 
against all his subjects of this faith, as earlier 
emperors had done against orthodox Christians. 
This sect accepted the Jewish scriptures, but de- 
nied the divinity of Jesus, and the same may be 
said of the Mohammedans, who came on four 
centuries later. The Sabellians were not in ac- 
cord with the Athanasians on the subject of the 
trinity, and the Arians opposed the Trinitarians 
bitterly a half century later. With the exception 
of the Manichaeans and the Mohammedans, these, 
and other sects, which might be referred to, were 
all important Christian bodies of the first three 
centuries, or up to A. D. 325. 

The military forces of the empire, under Con- 
stantine, were unable to suppress these numerous 
sects, though such suppression was often at- 
tempted, not always, however, in the interest of 



10 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

orthodox, or Catholic, Christianity. The In- 
quisition, a thousand years later, was futile in its 
efforts to suppress widely divergent and radical 
opinions that opposed Catholic Christianity. 
Threats of eternal punishment did not deter, nor 
did the hopes of salvation held out by the ortho- 
dox Church cajole dissenters from their course. 
Pope Boniface wrote to Philip, king of France: 
"Every human being is subject to the Roman 
Pontiff and to believe this is necessary to salva- 
tion." This was not the last innovation in 
Christian doctrine, but I will not here pursue this 
subject. 

RITES 

With reference to the rites and mysteries of 
the Christian Church, which were introduced into 
it largely by Gentile Christians and Greek the- 
ologians, there is reason to believe that much was 
taken from the mythologies of that and earlier 
ages by these converts, and that Nazarene 
Christianity was transformed and molded by 
Gentile Christians and scholars into the likeness 
of the polytheism of their ancestors. A trinity 
had been worshiped in Samothrace. Baptism 
had been practiced in the worship of Isis. Re- 
demption by sacrifice, mediation of the Logos, 
immortality of the soul, the resurrection, the last 
judgment, were cardinal articles of faith in the 
worship of Mithra. This religion had been 
taught in Persia for four centuries before Jesus, 



PROLOGUE 11 

and was continued in Rome until the fourth cen- 
tury, when, after an almost equal struggle with 
Christianity for supremacy in the Roman world 
it was discontinued. Epigrams of the second 
century are extant charging Christians with 
plagiarizing the doctrines of this cult. Aristeas 
of Proconnesus had risen twice from the dead 
and had been worshiped! A resurrection had 
been affirmed in the ceremony of the ancient wor- 
ship of Adonis and Aphrodite and of Tammuz 
and Ishtar. The Phrygian god Attis, born of 
a Virgin, rose from the dead on the fourth day, 
and his resurrection was yearly celebrated for 
centuries ; and, as of martyrdoms, they were not 
unknown at the feasts of Bacchus and at the 
Olympic games. The early Christians, too, in 
many instances sought martyrdom. In the sec- 
ond and third centuries, Christians had come to 
regard martyrdom as a rite of the Christian com- 
munities — not a voluntary rite to be performed, 
but one that, under certain circumstances and 
conditions, should be cheerfully suffered. Ter- 
tullian said: "Let the ungulae tear us, the cross 
bear our weight, the flames envelop us, the sword 
divide our throats, the wild beasts spring upon 
us; the very posture of prayer is a preparation 
for every punishment. These things, so far from 
being a terror, are rather a pleasure to us." 
Ignatius affirms his desire for martyrdom in his 
"Epistle to the Trallians," and prays that he may 
become worthy of it. Many of the Church 



12 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

Fathers maintained the same attitude, which the 
Roman magistrates could not understand. 

PROPHECY 

In the closing years of the reign of Aurelius, 
bishops were preaching in the catacombs at Rome, 
Carthage, Cyrene and Alexandria of the ap- 
proaching end, — the world was soon to be con- 
sumed by fire. Appeal was made to the gospels 
and to the Sibyls — to Christian prophecy and to 
heathen oracle. The Sibyls had become Jewish, 
and now Christian. The zeal with which the 
Christians preached this doctrine brought fright 
and panic to the masses. The Sibyls had not 
been forgotten, Christian prophecy alone could 
not move the people, but the Sibyls had spoken 
from time to time for six centuries and their fore- 
boding voices brought alarm and consternation. 
Human sacrifices were made in Rpme to the gods 
that the impending catastrophe might be averted. 
As the prediction failed, great honor was ac- 
corded the gods and Christian prophecy dis- 
credited. 

FAITH 

Gentile Christianity developed the doctrine of 
faith; the Gentiles received it first from Paul. 
This doctrine had become such an important fac- 
tor in orthodox Christianity by the eleventh 
century that Archbishop Hildebert of Tours de- 
clared: "Faith is above reason." This assump- 
tion appeared to settle the case. Tertullian, who 



PROLOGUE 13 

in the second century had been quite as dogmatic, 
said : "No more philosophy ! no more books ! after 
Jesus, science is useless I" Faith makes no in- 
vestigation; it does not question authority, nor 
the truth or error of propositions. It opposes 
reflection. It opposes experimentation. It op- 
poses reforms. It abets superstition. It is the 
refuge of ignorance and indolence. It would give 
repose by bidding us, "Let well enough alone," 
whereas it is through energy and unrest that we 
seek truth and pursue it. Through the doctrine 
of applied faith all forms of deception and error 
are made possible to a credulous subject. 

POLYTHEISM 

The world has ever been largely polytheistic. 
Confining our consideration to the Aryans of 
western Asia and their descendants, — the Euro- 
peans and ourselves — and to the gods of Homer 
and Hesiod, — the divinities of Egypt, Phoenicia, 
Greece and Rome; let us first determine whether 
the act of worship is the child or the parent of 
superstition. What influences lead men to wor- 
ship? Primarily the feeling of fear. Otherwise 
we would not make sacrifices. Remove from the 
minds of Christians the fear of judgment and of 
hell, and Christianity must change her postulates 
and ideals at once, else the God of Moses soon 
will have gone with Jupiter, Jesus with Sarapis, 
Mary with Isis. Fear and piety are qualities in- 
herent in the human mind. These beget worship, 



14 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

the form of which is determined by convention, 
and this by the character and amount of educa- 
tion and degree of civilization attained. The 
Greeks were pleased to believe that the gods were 
present and hovered in the air above them at 
Troy, and fought with them at Thermopylae. 
Treaties were solemnized by appeal to the gods, 
as being present. The treaty made by Philip 
and Hannibal calls the gods to witness: "In the 
presence of Jupiter, Juno and Apollo; in the 
presence of the deity of the Carthaginians, and 
of Hercules and of Iolus ; in the presence of Mars, 
Triton, and Neptune; and in the presence of all 
the gods who are with us in the camp." The 
Macedonian kings of Egypt believed the God of 
the Jews to be the same as Zeus of the Greeks, 
and Jupiter of the Romans. It is, however, re- 
markable that a belief in the personality of the 
gods should have continued long and found lodg- 
ment in the minds of the emperors of Rome. 
Marcus Aurelius, being the best educated and the 
most enlightened of all the early emperors, his 
"Meditations" evince a well informed and well 
disposed mind. This work is a summing up of 
Stoic doctrine and compares well in moral tone 
and expression with the "Sermon on the Mount." 
It is sad and disappointing to see this well in- 
formed man bending under the weight of the 
popular superstitions of his age. He says: "To 
those who ask, where hast thou seen the gods, or 
how dost thou comprehend that they exist and so 



PROLOGUE 15 

worshipest them? I answer, in the first place, that 
they may be seen even with the eyes ; in the second 
place, neither have I seen my own soul, and yet I 
honor it. Thus then with respect to the gods, 
from what I constantly experience of their power, 
from this I comprehend that they exist, and I 
venerate them." And on the subject of future 
life, Aurelius continues : "But to go away from 
among men, if there are gods, is not a thing to be 
afraid of, for the gods will not involve thee in 
evil; but if indeed they do not exist, or if they 
have no concern about human affairs, what is 
it to me to live in a universe devoid of gods or 
devoid of Providence? But in truth they do ex- 
ist, and do care for human things and they have 
put the means in man's power to enable him not 
to fall into real evil." It may be said, however, 
that superstition is no more pronounced in 
Aurelius than in the writings of the Christian 
bishops and theologians of that period. 

Judaism is of another race, — it is Semitic. 
When the doctrines of the Nazarene sect were 
stripped of their Jewish garb at Antioch and 
there presented to the Gentiles by Paul, their 
Semitic and monotheistic conceptions and exclu- 
sive character were, in a measure, retained, — 
Judaism and Christianity refused to become 
Aryan and make a shrine in the Pantheon. This 
exclusiveness and bigotry brought on the contest 
long waged in the Roman empire between Semitic 
Christianity and Aryan polytheism; between 



16 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

Christians and the adherents of all the other sys- 
tems or cults ; between Christian morality and the 
ethics of the schools of Greece. The emperors, 
therefore, became prejudiced against the Chris- 
tians because they separated themselves from their 
fellowmen and held aloof from all the social and 
civic life of the empire ; because, while worshiping 
a trinity, they ridiculed with sarcasm and hate 
the system of polytheistic worship, then held ven- 
erable and sacred by the most enlightened and 
civilized peoples of the world; treated with de- 
rision and contempt the gods whom the scholars 
of that time admired for the idealism and nat- 
uralism of which they were symbolic, and whom 
the masses adored in faith and consecration. 

The magistrates of Rome would have opposed 
no objections, would have instituted no prosecu- 
tions had the Christians built their temples, in- 
stituted their mysteries and ritual as other cults 
had done, without arrogating to themselves all 
of religion, and without assuming to be the sole 
servitors of God and righteousness. Polytheism 
was liberal and generous ; monotheism exclusive 

and bigoted. 

RELICS 

The superstitious character of Christianity is 
painfully disclosed in relic worship, which is an 
exaggerated expression of the tender emotions 
we have for the dead. It is analogous to ances- 
tor-worship and akin to hero-worship. It mani- 
fests emotionalism beyond the control of reason. 



PROLOGUE 17 

It evinces superstition broken away from the 
moorings of restraint and common-sense. This 
superstition did not develop until after Chris- 
tianity had come forth from the catacombs, where 
it had found asylum and was domiciled for the 
greater part of two centuries. 

By the fifth century, the traffic in the bones of 
saints had grown to such importance and magni- 
tude that, in Rome, no dead man was safe. 
Catacombs and basilicas were ransacked, inscrip- 
tions defaced, crypts broken into and sarcophagi 
plundered. The church finally undertook to stop 
this vandalism and vicious traffic. Pope Stephen 
III published a letter, purporting to come from 
Saint Peter, menacing "with eternal damnation 
the violators of the hallowed tombs." 

The adoration of relics was called "pollution" 
by the un-Christian emperor — Julian. St. Jerome 
held to the sanctity of relics, "around which the 
souls of martyrs are constantly hovering to hear 
the prayers of the supplicants." Later, the 
blood of martyrs was esteemed a talisman of 
great power. The Christian spectators of the 
martyrdom of St. Vincent dipped their clothes 
in his blood. "The bones of Polycarp," says one 
of the Fathers, "are more precious than the rich- 
est jewels and more tried than gold." Empress 
Constantina wrote to Pope Gregory the Great, 
at the end of the sixth century, for the head of 
St. Paul, in order, "with more solemnity to con- 
secrate a new church." Gregory replied, in effect, 



18 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

that he could not divide the bodies of the saints 
and declared that "the danger of invading their 
tombs is sometimes even fatal" ! Martin of 
Tours narrated how he discovered, by summoning 
the ghost of a supposed martyr, that the revered 
relics were only those of a thief. The Church 
of St. Prassede, Rome, holds in its collection of 
relics a part of the Crown of Thorns, and there 
are two whole Crowns of Thorns possessed by two 
churches in France; by a "miracle" all are said 
to be genuine. Empress Helena, mother of Con- 
stantine the Great, is said to have secured the 
Cross on which Jesus was crucified. After the 
crusade it was said that in Europe the fragments 
of the "true Cross" were sufficient to "freight a 
ship." Tradition recounts much for the efficacy 
of relics, — how the remains of saints healed the 
sick, converted heretics and raised the dead! 

AGNOSTICISM 

Those who possess their minds free from in- 
fluences of environment and suggestion, and have 
the disposition and ability to observe, investigate 
and reflect; to question, consider and think; and 
yet again and again to think, ever come to the 
border land of uncertainty where they must con- 
fess, if honest with themselves, that, with the 
limitations which still beset them they do not 
know whence they came, or whither they go. 
After nineteen centuries of Christian civilization 
and learning, in Europe and the West, we fall 
back on Lucretius of old, taking his words fresh 



PROLOGUE 19 

and pregnant with life as from his lips, confess- 
ing that we do not know "what lies behind the 
flaming ramparts of the world." 

We are a part of the universe, a fragment of 
the life of the solar system, an integral part of the 
life of this planet. The glory, or the fate, of the 
world is ours. We are changing as our environ- 
ment changes. The great stream of spiritual 
energy, whether an attribute of matter or exist- 
ing independently, impregnates all. Six centu- 
ries before our era, Heraclitus of Ephesus had ob- 
served the transitory character of all things in 
the realm of Nature and affirmed: "Eternal flux 
and change are the sole actualities ; all phenomena 
are in a state of continuous transition from non- 
existence to existence and vice versa," And Walter 
Pater interprets Epicurean doctrine, which bears 
on this subject, thus: "Conceded that what is se- 
cure in our experience is but the sharp apex of the 
present moment between two hypothetical eterni- 
ties, and all that is real in our experience but a 
series of fleeting impressions." Truth is relative, 
however, and Epicurean doctrine should be so in- 
terpreted; rather, we are a part of a scheme that 
is transcendently grand, it is our privilege and 
should be our greatest glory to be sensible of this. 
The younger Pliny possessed this feeling of unity 
with the world, and in writing to his friend, 
Tacitus, of the destruction of the cities of 
Herculaneum and Pompeii, the ruin of Campania, 
the three days of darkness and the creeping earth 
beneath his feet, — occasioned by the eruption of 



20 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

Vesuvius, of which he was witness, — says: "My 
support was grounded in that miserable, though 
mighty consolation, that all mankind were in- 
volved in the same calamity, and that I was per- 
ishing with the world itself." 

Man has risen from a low condition to his pres- 
ent state, and a higher plane awaits him. He 
possesses attributes which prophesy and assure 
this. His inquiring mind, his restless spirit, and 
his thirst for knowledge promise much. He will 
soon have freed his mind from the dominion of 
superstition, and his body from the thraldom of 
despotic government. The cruelty and license of 
Rome, under her emperors, largely came with the 
change of government, crime with imperialism, 
apostacy from sturdy virtue — -with empire and 
wealth. If, under the Republic, Rome was pec- 
cant, under the Empire she became a public 
plunderer and a heroic thief. If, under the rule 
of the Senate and Tribune, her hands were some- 
times stained with fratricidal blood, under the 
Caesars they became incarnadine. Under the Re- 
public, she banished tyrants ; under the Empire, 
she expelled philosophers, exiled her best citizens, 
expatriated Jews and sacrificed Christians. The 
crimes of the Empire were not due to its poly- 
theism; it was impossible that there could exist 
side by side master and slave, patrician and 
plebeian, citizen and subject. Man's greatest 
happiness and glory will not be realized in Re- 
ligion but in Democracy. 



HISTORICAL SUMMARY 

It is the purpose of this investigation to ascer- 
tain what evidence there is, outside the Gospels, 
of the life, teachings and death of Jesus. It has 
also been my purpose to ascertain the extent, and 
probable dates, of the writings which were re- 
garded as authoritative by the "Fathers of the 
Church," to determine whether the earliest of the 
"Fathers of the Church" were connected in any 
way with the apostles, to examine the several im- 
portant events in the early history of the Church ; 
and, lastly, to analyze the criticisms made by con- 
temporaneous writers, of the Christian religion 
and of its founders. 

There can be no doubt that Jesus was born in 
Judea in the year of Rome 749, which is equiva- 
lent to the year B. C. 4, or at about that date. 
There is no reason to doubt that He was a teacher 
of influence, that He drew many unto Him, and 
that because His doctrines were new and not al- 
together in keeping with the Mosaic law (which 
law had the authority of the prefixes, "Thus saith 
the Lord," and "The Lord spake unto Moses, 
saying") and because He forgave sins and per- 
formed many wonders and professed to be able 
to do many unusual things, the Sanhedrin of the 

21 



22 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

Jews condemned Him, the Roman procurator ac- 
quiesced in the judgment, and He was crucified. 
His crucifixion appears to have taken place in 
the month of March, A. D. 29. The doctrines 
He taught, the circumstances of His life and the 
fellowship had with His disciples, were deeply im- 
pressed on the minds of many who followed Him, 
and they paid Him divine honors. 

Following the crucifixion, the disciples of Je- 
sus began to teach in the synagogues. They 
taught that Jesus was the "Messiah" foretold by 
the prophets, and they charged the Pharisees with 
having wickedly put Him to death. These meet- 
ings were generally broken up in tumult, the dis- 
ciples taken before the Sanhedrin, tried and 
beaten, or otherwise punished. Later, in the case 
of Stephen, we learn that he was stoned to death. 
These things continued for about two years. 
The High Priest now began a systematic perse- 
cution of the members of the "New Sect." About 
this time, Paul of Tarsus appeared as one also 
active in persecuting and prosecuting them. 
While on this mission, Paul was converted, as we 
learn from his testimony, and at Damascus was 
baptized. Retiring to the wilderness in Arabia, 
he appears to have spent some time before re- 
turning to Damascus and beginning his ministry. 
He at once began teaching and preaching to the 
Jews the doctrines which Jesus had taught, 
though he had not known Jesus, nor heard these 
new doctrines from Him. Paul soon went before 



HISTORICAL SUMMARY 23 

the Gentiles, preaching and establishing churches. 
He threw the Jewish ceremonial laws aside and 
opened the way to the Gentiles "through faith." 
Peter seems to have had a vision which brought 
him to believe that the doctrines of Jesus should 
be presented to the Gentiles as well as to the Jews, 
though he advocated that the Gentiles should con- 
form to the ceremonials of the Jews, especially in 
the matter of eating meat, circumcision and puri- 
fication. It is interesting to contemplate what 
course the doctrines of Jesus would have taken 
had not Paul presented these doctrines to the Gen- 
tiles, and had not Peter had the vision, after which 
he sought to open the door to the Gentiles by 
first making Jews of them. The Gentiles at An- 
tioch accepted the doctrines of Christianity as 
presented by Paul, and the converts at Antioch 
were the first to be called "Christians." This 
was about nine or ten years after the crucifixion 
of Jesus. The apostles at Jerusalem were pur- 
suing their missionary work among the Jews, and 
Paul was establishing churches among* the Gen- 
tiles. About A. D. 64, or thirty-five years after 
the crucifixion, the first written "Gospels" ap- 
peared in the form of his epistles to the several 
churches, which he had established. Paul does 
not anywhere refer to the New Testament Scrip- 
tures, or to any part of them ; from which, and for 
other reasons, we may infer that no such written 
Scriptures were then, nor, until some years after 
the burning of Rome and the first persecution of 



24 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

Christians by Nero, in existence. We may, there- 
fore, safely conclude that the gospel was an oral 
gospel only, from the time of the crucifixion down 
to the writing of the Synoptics, unless Paul's epis- 
tles may be regarded as gospels. The Synoptic 
gospels (those attributed to Matthew, Mark and 
Luke) were written about A. D. 80, or about fifty- 
one years after the crucifixion of Jesus, embody- 
ing in permanent form an account of the life and 
teachings of Jesus. Competent critics 1 agree in 
the opinion that the gospel attributed to Mark 
was the first to be written, that Matthew followed 
and added much which Mark had omitted, and 
that Luke wrote last. It is evident that Luke did 
not write until after the fall of Jerusalem, and 
Renan is of the opinion that Matthew, as' well, did 
not write until after that event. 

The gospel of Matthew was written iri Hebrew ; 
those of Mark and Luke in Greek. Matthew was 
a disciple of Jesus ; Mark and Luke were not dis- 
ciples or apostles, for they had not known or seen 
Jesus. These gospels agree in part. They are 
not contradictory in any particular. It is a mar- 
velous circumstance that the teachings of Jesus 
were not reduced to writing and carefully edited 
soon after His crucifixion. Two reasons for this 
neglect may be deduced; first, that His disciples 
were ignorant men ; and, second, that belief in the 
early second coming of Jesus was established in 
the minds of the disciples, and therefore records 

i Abbott — Renan — Ewald. 



HISTORICAL SUMMARY 25 

of His ministry were considered unnecessary. 

St. Luke was with Paul and Barnabas in their 
ministry at Rome ; many years after this, St. Luke 
wrote his gospel and the "Acts of the Apostles." 
The "Revelations" seem to have preceded the 
Synoptic gospels, while the fourth gospel (that of 
St. John) apparently was not written until early 
in the second century. The character of this 
work is quite different from that of the other gos- 
pels comprised in the New Testament. It clearly 
shows the influence of the Alexandrian schools, in 
thought and expression, especially in the doctrine 
of the "Logos," developed by Philo. The New 
Testament books, with the exception of Matthew, 
were written in the Greek. The language in use 
in Judea in the 1 time of Jesus was Aramaic and, to 
some extent, Greek. Hebrew had not been spoken 
by the Jews of Palestine for two hundred years 
and the "Hebrew Scriptures" in use at that time 
were the Greek translation known as the Septua- 
gint. 

Coming now to the last quarter of the first cen- 
tury, we hear nothing of the gospels, as yet, from 
any source. Paul appears to have been lost in 
the persecution by Nero, in A. D. 64, — "beheaded 
without the gate on the Ostian Way." Barnabas 
and the apostles, with the exception of John, have 
passed away, and the orthodox Jews have persist- 
ently opposed the Christian doctrines and perse- 
cuted the Christians. Up to this time the Roman 
governors were ignorant of the doctrines of the 



26 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

Christians, and prosecuted them for infractions 
of the Roman laws only. It was unlawful, in the 
Roman empire, for a considerable number to as- 
semble without license. The edicts of the em- 
perors demanding that divine honors should be 
paid them were laws made to be obeyed. The 
Christians disobeyed, or ignored, these laws, and 
the orthodox Jews were quick to inform on them 
and so prosecutions followed. 

John was now living at Ephesus, and a young 
man by the name of "Polycarp," born near there 
in A. D. 69, was a pupil of his. Another young 
man was born in that locality in A. D. 70, named 
"Papias." These were the first of the early 
"Fathers of the Church." It is stated by Iren- 
aeus, A. D. 120-202, that Papias heard John 
preach. It is also stated by Eusebius, A. D. 265, 
that Papias often, while describing events in the 
lives of the apostles, would use these words : "The 
elder used to say," and it was understood that he 
referred to the apostle John who was living up 
to about A. D. 98, at which time Papias was 
twenty-eight years old. 

In the case of Polycarp, the evidence of his as- 
sociation with the apostle John is much better. 
The evidence does not come to us through the writ- 
ings of Polycarp, which are very meager, but 
through Irenseus, who, as a young man, knew 
Polycarp and heard him teach and preach. A let- 
ter has been preserved, written by Irenaeus to his 
friend, Florinus, which is interesting and full of 



HISTORICAL SUMMARY 27 

touching sentiments: "I saw you" (says Irenaeus 
to Florinus) "when I was yet a boy in lower Asia 
with Polycarp. ... I can even point out 
now the place where the Blessed Polycarp sat and 
spoke and described his going out and coming 
in, his manner of life, his personal appearance, 
the address he delivered to the multitude, how he 
spoke of his intercourse with John, and with the 
others who had seen 1 the Lord, and how he recalled 
their words, and everything he had heard about 
the Lord ; about His miracles and His teaching. 
Polycarp told us as one who had received it from 
those who had seen the word of life with their own 
eyes, and all this in complete harmony with the 
Scriptures. To this I then listened, through the 
mercy of God vouchsafed to me, with all eager- 
ness, and wrote it not down on paper, but in my 
heart, and still, by the grace of God, I ever bring 
it into fresh remembrance." 

1 am unable to find that others of the "Fathers 
of the Church," or those having a place in secular 
history, excepting Josephus who writes of James, 
knew any one of the apostles. Nothing stronger 
than bare conjecture is found to show that Peter, 
late in life, became bishop of the Church at Rome, 
and that the Hierarchy of the Roman Church goes 
back in an unbroken chain to Peter and through 
him to the apostolic age. 2 Polycarp appears to be 

2 Tertullian implies that the register of the Church at 
Rome showed that St. Clement was made bishop of that 
Church by St. Peter. Clement was the third bishop of the 
Roman Church, however, and not the first. 



28 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

the one and only well authenticated link! that con- 
nects the post apostolic age with the apostles. 

The "Fathers of the Church" were, almost with- 
out exception, men of great ability and fine 
scholarship. They do not always agree in their 
opinions and conceptions of Christianity, nor con- 
cur in the doctrines of the Church, as we now 
understand these doctrines. It is impossible to 
consider here the many and varied interpretations 
of Scripture made, and the great constructive 
work done, by the "Fathers of the Church," be- 
ginning with Polycarp in the first century and 
ending with Gregory in the fifth. Aside from 
the tragedy on Calvary, the work of these great 
men, the consecration of their lives, and the perse- 
cution and martyrdom they suffered, constitute 
the richest heritage of the Christian Church. 

Up to A. D. 96, reference is found nowhere to 
the gospels, and it is to be inferred that they 
were still oral and traditional in character. If 
records or memoranda existed they were in the 
Aramaic language, the vernacular of Jesus and 
His disciples. The Church at Jerusalem, estab- 
lished by the apostles soon after the crucifixion 
and known over Judea and Samaria as "The Sect 
of the Nazarene," had now been in existence for 
sixty-five years, and apparently had not in all 
these years known of, or possessed, the Synoptic 
gospels.. 

It is stated by Irenasus that Polycarp was made 
bishop of the Church at Smyrna by the apostle 



HISTORICAL SUMMARY 29 

John. It is not known at what time this appoint- 
ment was made, but presumably it was early in 
Polycarp's life; at all events, Polycarp occupied 
this position until A. D. 155, when he suffered 
martyrdom. It is to be observed, however, that 
Polycarp has nowhere mentioned the gospels in 
any of his writings. It is, therefore, to be in- 
ferred that he knew nothing of them, and that 
he used the traditional narrative in all his minis- 
try. 

Papais (A. D. 70-156), writing about A. D. 
140, mentions the gospels of Matthew and Mark, 
but places a higher value on the traditional nar- 
rative than on the more circumscribed account 
given in these gospels. He states, "the gospels 
are inadequate." He mentions, too, many mir- 
acles wrought by Jesus, but not found in the gos- 
pels. He gives the interesting information that 
"Mark recorded from memory the testimonies of 
Peter," and that "Mark never saw or knew Jesus 
but received his information from Peter." He 
states also : "Matthew wrote his scriptures in 
Hebrew and each man interpreted them as best he 
could." 

Justin Martyr, born at Rome about A. D. 100, 
some fifty years later, says : "The memoirs of the 
apostles were read with the books of the prophets 
in the several churches," and he esteemed the 
prophecies most. In his dialogues with Trypho 
he shows clearly that Jesus was believed to have 
been "Man of Man" and "The Son of Joseph," 



30 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

and that only by a superior and implicit faith in 
the prophecies can one! believe in His supernatural 
character. 

Clement of Rome, A. D. 98, in a letter to the 
church at Corinth, appears to have quoted from 
Matthew, but does not anywhere refer to the 
gospels. 

Barnabas, in an epistle written about A. D. 
100, or 125, uses words and expressions found in 
Matthew's gospel, but he also quotes words of 
Jesus which are nowhere found in the gospels. 

The "Shepherd of Hermas," A. D. 135, does 
not quote from, or refer to, the gospels. 

Clement of Alexandria, A. D. 160, evinces a 
knowledge of the gospels in his works, — "The 
Homilies." He evidently regarded Christianity 
a philosophy and was willing to say that Plato 
had been inspired. 

Irenaeus, when writing about A. D. 115, quotes 
some words from the gospels, but not accurately ; 
he also quotes from Jesus words and phrases that 
are not! in our canonical gospels. Later, however, 
he quotes more fully and accurately from the 
Synoptic gospels and, apparently, from the fourth 
gospel as well. It may be said that this early 
bishop was the first to give historical evidence 
of the existence of the four gospels ; Matthew, 
Mark, Luke and John, and this evidence was not 
given until well on towards the middle of the sec- 
ond century — a fact not to be lost sight of. 

Marcion, A. D. 140, founded a Christian sect, 



HISTORICAL SUMMARY 31 

and used the epistles of Paul, but also quoted from 
the gospels. Tertullian, born at Carthage A. D. 
150, quotes from the fourth gospel authoritatively. 
It may be observed that the four gospels under 
review, which form the groundwork of Christian- 
ity, do not sufficiently agree to justify the claim 
that they are, or were, inspired, which an analysis 
of their divergencies, or lapses, will show. An 
inspired account of an occurrence given by one 
author must concur with a similarly inspired ac- 
count of the same occurrence given by another 
author. The Lord's Prayer, for example, is not 
given in the same words by Matthew as by Luke, 
and is not mentioned at all by Mark. Was in- 
spiration given to Matthew of a different char- 
acter, or given to a greater or less degree, than 
that given to Luke, and did it fail altogether in 
the person of Mark? Consider the history of the 
miraculous conception of Jesus. Mark, the ear- 
lier writer, makes no mention of this supernatural 
event. Matthew's account is somewhat different 
from that of Luke. How can these writers of the 
gospels have been inspired when they fail to agree 
upon such an important matter as the record of 
the miraculous conception of Jesus? The Ser- 
mon on the Mount is not mentioned by Mark. 
Why did inspiration fail in him that he omitted to 
give this important effusion of ethical doctrine? 
Matthew apparently wrote later than Mark and 
he seems to have amended the narrative to make 
it show a fulfillment of prophecy in the birth and 



32 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

life of Jesus. In this, was Matthew more in- 
spired than Mark, who, not being a Jew, did not 
write to that end? Luke implies that "attempts" 
had been made toi set forth a continuous narrative 
of the things "surely believed," and he mentions 
a "tradition," which probably was the source of 
the gospel record. Was he, in this work, more 
profoundly inspired than those who, preceding 
him, had attempted this narration and, from his 
point of view, had failed? Paul states that he 
received his gospel from the Lord and not from 
man, and Paul quotes words from Jesus not found 
in the gospels. This is difficult to understand. 
Luke was with Paul in his work at Rome and it 
may be inferred that Luke received his informa- 
tion from Paul rather than by means of inspira- 
tion. 

The four gospels fall short of being authenti- 
cated historical narrative in this : they do not 
indicate place where written, date when written, 
nor signatures and attestations of the authors. 
These defects are regarded by all critics, ancient 
and modern, as fatal to the authenticity of his- 
torical narrative and biography. For example, 
in the case of the narrative attributed to Matthew, 
the writer says, "Gospel according to Matthew," 
not by Matthew, nor of Matthew. This indicates 
that the narrative was compiled by editors, who 
assigned the authorship of their work to Matthew. 
This supposition is strengthened by internal evi- 
dence. Had not this gospel been written at a 



HISTORICAL SUMMARY 33 

late date, such expressions as, "to this day," "even 
to this day," "until this day," would not have 
been used so frequently. 

The authorship of the fourth gospel was legen- 
dary as late as A. D. 170. No one knew in those 
years, nor does anyone know now, who wrote it. 
The "Muratorian Fragment," A. D. 170-200, 
states that this gospel was compiled by a number 
of authors. Many modern critics, well versed in 
Greek and Latin, having had access to the extant 
early manuscripts in the Greek text bearing on 
the authorship of this gospel, aver that it ap- 
pears to have been compiled at Ephesus by a group 
of Christian scholars as a revision of the Synoptic 
gospels. Other books in the New Testament were 
so written and in like manner the authorship at- 
tributed to important personages. The apostle 
John had long been a striking figure at Ephesus 
and it was a fitting tribute to this venerable and 
venerated Jew, at this time deceased, to ascribe 
this finished and scholarly production to him. 
This gospel was not taken notice of by any theo- 
logians whose writings we have, until after A. D. 
150, and it was not frequently and generally re- 
ferred to until A. D. 180. Irenseus, A. D. 120- 
202, says, in effect, that this gospel contains 
statements which are specially intended to re- 
move the error of the Cerinthians and Nicolaitans, 
the former a Christian body that flourished in 
Asia Minor in the first quarter of the second cen- 
tury. 



34 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

With the beginning of the second century, 
Christianity had taken root in the Roman Em- 
pire, supplanting in many localities the older 
religions of Rome, which had long been associated 
with the government of, the state and empire. 
The pagan temples were in a measure deserted, 
the worship of the gods neglected and the gov- 
ernment itself was thought to be menaced. Until 
now, the educated classes and the governors of 
Rome, had not distinguished Christianity from 
Judaism, nor Christians from Jews. While the 
persecutions under Nero and succeeding emperors, 
down to Trajan (from A. D. 54 to 98), were 
characterized by unspeakable cruelty, still the gov- 
ernors of Rome regarded the Christians as a 
Jewish sect. The persecution under Nero was 
the first to occur, and was an arbitrary persecu- 
tion, in no degree judicial. There was some 
trouble earlier, according to the historian Sueton- 
ius, which occurred in the reign of Claudius when 
he drove some four thousand Jews out of Rome, 
for there were daily riots and turmoil growing 
out of the effort of the Christian Jews to convert 
orthodox Jews to Christianity. It does not ap- 
pear, however, that Claudius discerned any differ- 
ence between Christian and orthodox Jews ; in 
fact, all Jews looked alike to him and all were 
equally despised. 

By A. D. 132, in the reign of Hadrian, the 
nature and force of Christianity were fully real- 
ized and the danger to the empire understood. 



HISTORICAL SUMMARY 35 

Livy had, long before this, given to the people 
of Rome, the maxim: "Wherever the religion of 
any state falls into disregard and contempt, it 
is impossible for that state to subsist long." This 
maxim finally proved true, for imperial Rome went 
down, together with her institutions and her gods, 
as Christianity became ascendant. 

The civil authorities had now become alarmed. 
The adherents of the old religions were jealous 
and resentful ; the priesthood, in its wrath towards 
the new religion, urged the emperors to suppress 
it. The Christians were separatists. They were 
exclusive. They renounced the world and em- 
braced Christianity with enthusiasm for a life 
of holiness and. asceticism. Rome had rested on 
the power and prowess of her legions. Her re- 
ligion was Imperialism and her God was Mars. 
Christianity wanted no part in secular govern- 
ment nor in military conquests ; therefore Chris- 
tianity menaced the state. Beside, the Roman 
authorities had heard of the prophecy of the 
Christians, that an earthly kingdom was soon to 
come in glory and without end, and thereby their 
fears were aroused. It was therefore decided to 
stamp out Christianity. A systematic prosecution, 
or persecution, of the Christians was instituted and 
became the policy of the Roman government. 
These prosecutions reached their greatest extent in 
Diocletian's reign ; it is written that over thirty 
thousand martyrdoms took place in those years, 3 

3 Gibbon, however, estimates the number of martyrdoms 



36 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

and that the property of the Christians was quite 
generally confiscated and the Christian churches 
demolished. With the coming of Constantine, in 
A. D. 313, prosecution of the Christians ceased. 
Constantine embraced the Christian religion and 
the empire gave it protection and encouragement. 
Now, when annoyance from without had ceased, 
dissension! and strife began within. The necessity 
was felt of formulating a creed for the purpose 
of bringing about a uniformity of belief among 
the theologians and bishops of Christendom. 
There was at this time a large accumulation of 
Christian writings which were regarded as "gos- 
pels" and generally thought to have been "in- 
spired." From these and other sources a great 
diversity of opinion prevailed as to what was 
Christian doctrine and what was not. The 
schools of Alexandria had interpreted Christian 
doctrine from many standpoints and had reached 
many conclusions. From without, Christianity 
had been influenced by paganism in many ways ; 
from within, by Neo-Platonism, Gnosticism and 
Montanism. It had become largely an incongru- 
ous medley of speculation and superstition. A 
council of bishops of Christendom was needed and 
a council was called, at Nica^a, in A. D. 325. Em- 
peror Constantine presided at this council, which 
lasted over a month and was attended by 318 

which occurred under the emperors at about 6000, and 
says that almost all such cases were had pursuant to 
judicial process. 



HISTORICAL SUMMARY 37 

bishops. These came from Asia, from Africa, 
from Judea, from Spain and from Gaul. Some 
came by ships, some by chariots, some on camels 
in caravans, and some were carried in chairs and 
some borne on litters. Many of the latter had 
literally been snatched as "coals from the burn- 
ing," for they had felt fire at the stake and their 
limbs were dead or paralyzed. History nowhere, 
makes mention of a more interesting, a more de- 
termined, or a more unique gathering of men, 
than that which assembled at Nicaea to determine 
the creed of the Christian church. The delibera- 
tions of this body were in Greek. In the end, 
the radical trinitarian doctrines prevailed and a 
creed was formulated affirming them. The mi- 
nority party, the party of protest, was anath- 
ematized, and, later, led by one Arius, a presby- 
ter of the church at Alexandria, developed into 
a considerable body or branch of the Eastern 
Church, known as "Arians." This early creed is 
interesting and is given in full: "We believe in 
one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all 
things, both visible and] invisible ; and in one Lord, 
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the 
Father, only begotten, that is to say, of the sub- 
stance of the Father, God of God and Light of 
Light, Very God of Very God, begotten, not made, 
being of one substance with the Father, by whom 
all things were made, both things in Heaven and 
things on Earth; who, for us men and for our 
salvation, came down and was made flesh, made 



38 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

man, suffered and rose again on the third day, 
went up into the Heavens, and is to come again 
to judge the quick and the dead; and in the Holy 
Ghost." Then follows the "Anathema" of Arius 
and his followers ; briefly as follows : "Anathema 
be they who say, there was a time when Jesus 
Christ was not," . . . that "Before He was 
begotten He was not," . . . that "He came 
into existence from what was not," and that He 
is of a different "Person" or "Substance." Arius 
is said to have addressed the bishops in this man- 
ner: "A thousand times no! The Son is not co- 
eternal with the Father, nor of the same substance ! 
Otherwise He would not have said, — 'Why call Me 
good? God only is good.' 'I go to my God, to 
your 1 God.' And other words attesting his quality 
to be that of a creature. It is demonstrated to 
us moreover by His many names : 'Lamb,' 'Shep- 
herd,' 'Fountain,' 'Wisdom,' 'Good way,' 'Prophet,' 
'Son of Man,' 'Corner Stone.' And I will call to 
your minds the fact that this doctrine, which pro- 
claims that Jesus is consubstantial (of like sub- 
stance) with God, was considered by our venerated 
and consecrated predecessors at the council of 
Antioch, in the year 269, and that they decreed 
it to be both heretical and damnable !" By all 
this we see how the Greek mind developed subtle 
inconsistencies and formulated metaphysical prop- 
ositions that have baffled the wisdom of sixteen 
succeeding: centuries. 

This was the second important step in the evo- 



HISTORICAL SUMMARY 39 

lution of Christian doctrine and dogma. The 
first council of which we know was that held 
at Jerusalem to which, it is recorded, Paul and 
Barnabas went from Antioch, and at which it was 
tacitly agreed that Paul should preach the gospel 
of "uncircumcision" to the Gentiles, that the Jew- 
ish ceremonials should no longer be laid in the way 
of the neophyte. Peter acquiesced in this depar- 
ture, but the other apostles did not; except, per- 
haps, they accorded the right to Paul and Barna- 
bas to do so on their own responsibility. Peter 
returned to Antioch with Paul and saw the work 
going on among the Gentiles and approved of it; 
but when the other apostles of Jerusalem came 
down to Antioch, Peter withdrew with them, caus- 
ing a serious rupture between Paul and Peter. 
It is evident that, had it not been for Paul preach- 
ing to the Gentiles, the religion of Jesus would 
have been confined to the Jews. We know that, 
later, the converted Jewish Christians could not 
be reconciled to the admission of Gentiles to be 
"fellow heirs" with the "Children of the Promise." 
It is not necessary in this inquiry to consider any 
save the more important of the numerous councils 
held by the early Christian theologians and bish- 
ops, nor to examine the many "heresies" and 
"schisms" that called them forth. 

Following the secularization of the Church, 
which occurred when it was taken under the pro- 
tection of the Roman Empire by Constantine, there 
was a mighty rush of pagans into it. These new 



40 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

adherents (we can hardly call them converts) 
took with them their superstitions, their poly- 
theism, their magic and their images. It was 
necessary to provide these with access to the 
Scriptures, that they might learn the doctrines 
and history of Christianity. Many writings at 
this time were regarded as sacred and authorita- 
tive which did not concur in matters of doctrine. 
It became necessary to pass upon the character 
and authority of these numerous! writings and thus 
make an authoritative canon. This work had 
been undertaken by certain of the Fathers of the 
Church at different times as early as the second 
century, and there were now almost as many can- 
ons of "Inspired Gospels" as there were bishops 
to expound them. Finally, a council of the bish- 
ops was held for this purpose at Hippo in A. D. 
393, at which no conclusion was reached. Great 
discussion arose and another council to consider 
this momentous subject was held at Carthage in 
397, at which time the opinions of St. Augustine 
prevailed and the New Testament writings, sub- 
stantially as we now have them, were decided to 
be canonical. At this distance from the time and 
scene of this great work we cannot and do not 
appreciate the delicacy, intricacy and importance 
of it. The more important books that were here 
voted out and classed as "non-canonical," and 
which were to be no more used as Scripture, were 
the following: "The Shepherd of Hermas," "The 
Gospel according to the Egyptians," "The Preach- 



HISTORICAL SUMMARY 41 

ing of Peter," "The Acts of Paul," several gos- 
pels under the name of "Matthew," and numerous 
epistles attributed to Barnabas, as well as many 
other gospels and writings. The minority body 
in these councils wanted to exclude from the 
canon certain of the books which the majority 
voted "canonical," and so we find that the New 
Testament scriptures were made up by many com- 
promises and with! much dissatisfaction among the 
theologians of that day. 

It is difficult to ascertain whether Constantine 
embraced the Christian religion from a convic- 
tion of the truth and beauty of its teachings, or 
from motives of expediency. Eusebius tells us 
that Constantine, while with his army in Gaul, 
saw the form of the Cross in the sky with these 
words written upon it: "By this sign conquer." 
And Constantine is reported to have said that he 
saw Jesus, while in Gaul, with the Crown oif 
Thorns on His head. Nazarius, who was with 
Constantine in Gaul, describes an army of "divine 
warriors who came down from the sky to assist 
Constantine," and refers to "the whole of the Gal- 
lic Nation for proof of this." Many other signs 
and wonders are said to have presented themselves 
to Constantine, all tending to influence him favor- 
ably toward Christianity. On the other hand, 
throughout Constantine's life, he retained the idol- 
atrous proclivities of his youth and was inclined to 
worship the Sun. He sent offerings to the altar of 
Apollo, and published two conflicting decrees in 



42 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

the same year: — one enjoining the observance of 
the Christian Sabbath, the other directing the 
regular consultation of the auspices. He also 
expressed the desire to proclaim himself a god 
and to demand divine honors of the people as 
the emperors before him had done. Constantine 
was not baptized until near his death ; he had mur- 
dered his wife, son and nephew. He did not give 
Christians exclusive privileges. The decree of 
Milan, A. D. 318, recites : "We give to the Chris- 
tians, and to all, the free choice to follow what- 
ever mode of worship they may wish." 

With the events of the fourth century, came a 
formal recognition of the honor due to the sev- 
eral churches that had been established by the 
apostles. Of these, the church at Rome was 
given first place "because it is the city of the 
kings." The others were Jerusalem, Antioch, 
Alexandria, Ephesus, Corinth, and Constantinople, 
which latter was formerly Byzantium. Now the 
apostle Andrew is said to have established a church 
at Byzantium, or rather at the suburban town 
of Argyropolis, A. D. 36, and appointed as first 
bishop there his disciple, Stachis, whom Paul had 
"anointed with his own hands." The church had 
been served by eighteen successive bishops, when 
Constantine brought the seat of government to 
Constantinople, A. D. 313. Rome and the west- 
ern churches used the Latin text and tongue, while 
Constantinople and the eastern churches used the 
Greek. Honors were about equally divided be- 



HISTORICAL SUMMARY 43 

tween the church at Rome and that at Constanti- 
nople when Emperor Justinian re-built, in the 
latter city, the magnificent church, St. Sophia, 
costing the equivalent of $70,000,000. The 
grandeur of this edifice was unsurpassed in that 
day. The exquisite and awe-inspiring beauty of 
its interior was said to be beyond the power of 
the words of man to describe. This enabled Jus- 
tinian to say, when he entered it on the day of 
its consecration, "I have surpassed thee, O Sol- 
omon !" Domiciled in this temple, the eastern 
church seemed the more resplendent. The church 
at Rome had introduced certain innovations about 
this time, substituting unleavened for leavened 
bread, in the celebration of the Lord's Supper, and 
developing a "Purgatorium" or half-way place be- 
tween earth and heaven or hell. It had also 
promulgated the doctrine of the "Infallibility of 
the Pope." The Greek, or orthodox, church 
thought these innovations scandalous and the 
Patriarch of the church at Constantinople wrote 
to the Pope at Rome condemning his action in 
introducing and promulgating these innovations. 
The Pope replied by demanding of the Patriarch 
to know by what right he questioned or condemned 
the conduct of the church at Rome, "whose actions 
can be judged by no mortal," and the Pope ended 
his letter by calling on the Patriarch to repent and 
beg forgiveness of his sin, "lest he be 1 incorporated 
in the tail of the dragon who had swallowed up 
the third part of the orbs shining in the Heavens." 



44 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

The Latin church was ambitious ; the Greek 
conservative. A separation was inevitable and 
it was consummated in A. D. 1054. The Greek 
church regards herself as standing firm to all the 
traditions of the churches established by the apos- 
tles. She predominates, as the exponent of the 
Christian religion, over Western Asia, Northern 
Africa, and Russia; her ritual is unchanged from 
that established in the apostolic age ; the Scrip- 
tures are still read in the Greek, and the head of 
the church is still at Constantinople, though the 
church does not now occupy nor possess the 
beautiful St. Sophia, for this superb temple is now 
a Moslem mosque and dedicated to the proposition 
that "God is God and Mohammed is His Prophet." 
The fortunes of the Latin or Roman church fol- 
lowed the new world ; it carried the cross into the 
wilderness of central Europe and when the old 
order of the Gauls and Franks gave way to a new 
and better civilization, the church shared in the 
rich fruits of that opulent development. Later, 
following the ensign of Columbus to the new 
world of the West, it shared with Spain the spoils 
of conquest in both Americas. It suffered its most 
serious schism when the protests of Luther rang 
out over Europe and "Protestantism" was born 
at the diet of Spires in 1529. 



II 

CRITICISMS 

Let us now go back to the first century and see 
how Christianity was regarded by its critics. In 
this effort we find a more difficult task, and reliable 
information neither abundant nor easily obtained. 
We have already shown that Rome thought only 
of the conquests of her legions and the plunder 
and spoils which conquests brought to her. She 
had no time for religion, nor inclination to phil- 
osophical studies or ethical speculation. It was 
quite otherwise with the Greeks. They had es- 
tablished schools of philosophy and had developed 
splendid systems, or modes, of thought and study. 
The Greek was an investigator and a real phi- 
losopher. The schools at Alexandria, at the 
beginning of the Christian era, have never been 
surpassed in fostering profound study of the uni- 
verse and of man and his relation to the natural 
world. The universities of our age do not ap- 
proach the schools of Alexandria in enthusiasm 
and ardor for real knowledge and scientific in- 
vestigation. At the time Jesus was thirty years 
of age and beginning His ministry in Judea, 
Philo was forty years old and was a leader in 
all the philosophical studies of his day in the 

45 



46 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

schools at Alexandria. He was a Hellenic Jew 
of great liberality of mind and a thoroughly con- 
scientious man. In religion he appropriated and 
developed the doctrine of the "Logos," conceived 
by Plato, and gave a Hellenic interpretation and 
coloring to the philosophy and religion of the 
Jews. Later, these conceptions greatly influenced 
the thought of the New Testament writers and 
the early Fathers of the Church, especially Origen, 
himself a Greek philosopher of Alexandria. Now 
this investigator, this philosopher, this contempo- 
rary of Jesus, this devout man, this well informed 
Hellenic Jew nowhere mentions Jesus, the apos- 
tles or the Christians. What are we to infer from 
this silence of one so likely to be among the first 
to know of Christianity and investigate its claims ? 

The celebrated Jewish historian, Justus, of the 
time of Jesus, does not allude to Jesus nor to His 
disciples nor to the Christians. The new sect 
was not known as "Christians," however, in Judea, 
at the time Justus lived and wrote. The histo- 
rian and theologian Photius, A. D. 860, makes the 
following observation on the silence of Justus 
touching Jesus : "I have read the chronicle of Jus- 
tus of Tiberius. He omits the greatest part of 
what was most necessary to be related ; but as in- 
fected with Jewish prejudices, being himself a 
Jew by birth, he makes no mention at all of the 
advent, or of the acts done, or of the miracles 
wrought by Christ." 

I purposely omit the harsh criticisms of Jesus 



CRITICISMS 47 

and of the early Christians found in the "Talmud" 
of the first century. The prejudices of the ortho- 
dox Jews were too strong at that time for reason- 
able or moderate criticism of Christianity and of 
its founder. There are two criticisms in the Tal- 
mud that may be referred to here ; first, that with 
the Jews it was a crime for anyone to claim divine 
honors. Their conception of God was distinc- 
tively monotheistic. The Jews had no respect for 
the tendency of the age to pay divine honors to 
the emperors, nor for the polytheism of the 
Greeks. It was therefore with a degree of con- 
sistency that they counted Jesus a criminal in 
this, that he claimed divine honors of them. Sec- 
ond; that he deceived a credulous people by works 
of magic. 

Seneca, born B. C. 4, grew to manhood con- 
temporaneously with Jesus in the reign of Tibe- 
rius ; was a philosopher of the Stoic school, a 
brilliant and a wealthy man ; was one of the most 
eminent of the Latin writers of the first century ; 
was consul in 57 ; and had been the teacher of 
Nero, finally committing suicide at the command 
of his imperial pupil. This man was a moralist. 
It has been said of him in this generation that he 
"anticipated all our best conceptions of morality." 
He was also an original investigator and went to 
the sources of things. He interrogated the mys- 
teries of the heavens and of the physical world 
and questioned the meaning of life and the destiny 
of man. He sought to ascertain man's place in 



48 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

nature and to make an adjustment between the 
aspirations of man and his environment. His 
elder brother, Gallio, was proconsul at Achaia, 
whither Paul had been haled before him by ac- 
cusing Jews, and it is said of him "that he drave 
them from his judgment seat." Notwithstanding 
the many works of Seneca that are extant, and 
his high character and associations, he nowhere 
mentions Jesus, or the Christians. This fact was 
observed and felt by St. Jerome, who often ex- 
tolled the virtues of Seneca. 

There is a letter in the Apocryphal writings 
of the New Testament which purports to have 
been written by Seneca to the apostle Paul on the 
subject of the burning of Rome byi the Christians, 
which report Nero circulated. This letter is be- 
lieved by all critics to be spurious, and is thought 
to be the work of a zealous Christian, written 
to offset the charge which Nero had made, 
namely, that the Christians had started the con- 
flagration. The letter follows. — 

"Seneca to Paul of Tarsus : 

"As to the frequent burnings of the city of 
Rome, the cause is manifest ; and if a person in 
my mean circumstances might be allowed to speak, 
and one might declare these dark things without 
danger, every one should see the whole of the 
matter. 

"The Christians and Jews are indeed commonly 
punished for the crime of burning the city; but 
that miscreant, who delights in murders and 



CRITICISMS 49 

butcheries, and disguises his villainies with lies, is 

appointed to, or reserved till, his proper time. 

Farewell." 

"The 5th of the Calends of April, 

in consulship of Frigius and Bassus." 

The elder Pliny, a naturalist and an extensive 
writer, was ten years old when Jesus was cruci- 
fied. He lived near Naples and perished in the 
eruption of Vesuvius A. D. 79. He is silent as 
to Jesus, the circumstances of His death and the 
work of His disciples. Writing on the subject 
of magic (BXXX, C2) Pliny says: "There is 
another sect, also, of adepts in the magid art, who 
derive their origin from Moses, Jannes, and 
Lotapea, Jews by birth, but many thousand years 
posterior to Zoroaster; (?) and as much more re- 
cent, again, is the branch of magic cultivated in 
Cyprus." To the last sentence the translators add 
this foot note : "By some it has been supposed that 
this bears reference to Christianity, as introduced 
into Cyprus by the apostle Barnabas. Owing to 
the miracles wrought in the infancy of the Church, 
the religion of the Christians was very generally 
looked upon as a sort of magic." 

Josephus, born at Jerusalem in A. D. 38, some 
five or more years after the death of Jesus, a Jew- 
ish historian of much renown, mentions the execu- 
tion of John the Baptist by Herod and states : 
"John was a good man, and commanded the Jews 
to exercise virtue, both as to righteousness towards 
one another, and piety towards God, and so to 



50 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

come to baptism, for that the washing would be 
acceptable to Him, if they made use of it, not in 
order to the putting away of some sins, but for 
the purification of the body; supposing still that 
the soul was thoroughly purified before hand by 
righteousness. . . . Now when many others 
came in crowds about him, for they were greatly 
moved by hearing his words, Herod, who feared 
lest the great influence John had over the people 
might put it into his power and inclination to 
raise a rebellion, for they seemed ready to do any- 
thing he should advise, thought it best, by putting 
him to death, to prevent any mischief he might 
cause, and not bring himself into difficulties by 
sparing a man, who might make him repent of it 
when it should be too late. Accordingly he was 
sent a prisoner, out of Herod's suspicious temper, 
to macherus, the castle I before mentioned, and 
was there put to death. Now the Jews had an 
opinion that the destruction of Herod's army was 
sent as a punishment upon Herod and a mark of 
God's displeasure against him." 

Josephus next refers to the death of the apos- 
tle James: "Festus was now dead, and Albinus 
was but upon the road; so Ananus assembled the 
Sanhedrin of Judges, and brought before them 
the brother of Jesus, who 1 was called Christ, whose 
name was James, and some others ; and when he 
had formed an accusation against them as break- 
ers of the law, he delivered them to be 
stoned." 

We have now to consider the reference to Jesus, 



CRITICISMS 51 

— the incidents of His life and His resurrection — 
which purports to have been written by Josephus. 
This reference has been held, by many scholars 
and critics, to be an interpolation. Edward Gib- 
bon states in his history of the "Decline and Fall 
of the Roman Empire," that the paragraph in 
question is an interpolation and that it was not 
in the works of Josephus until after the council 
of Nicaea. Here is the disputed paragraph, in 
full: "Now, there was about this time Jesus, a 
wise man, if it be lawful to call Him a man, for 
He was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of 
such men as! received the truth with pleasure. He 
drew over to Him both many of the Jews and 
many of the Gentiles. He was Christ; and when 
Pilate at the suggestion of the principal men 
amongst us, had condemned Him to the cross, 
those that loved Him at the first did not forsake 
Him, for He appeared to them again on the third 
day, as the Divine prophets had foretold these 
and ten thousand other wonderful things con- 
cerning Him ; and the tribe of Christians, so 
named from Him, are not extinct at this day." 
We know that Josephus paid "divine honors" to 
Vespasian while Vespasian was emperor and that 
he worshiped Vespasian after the Senate had de- 
creed his apotheosis and had ordered a temple to 
be built to his honor and a priestly order estab- 
lished. If he believed that Jesus was Christ in 
the sense we understand the term, he was untrue 
to himself for he certainly did not pay "divine 
honors" to Jesus. 



52 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

That this reference to Jesus was not in the 
works of Josephus in the time of Origen, A. D. 
185-254, may be safely inferred from the fact 
that Origen was familiar with the works of 
Josephus and of all the Jewish histories down to 
his time. Origen was learned in the Hebrew and 
had translated the Hebrew scriptures into Greek. 
When Origen attempted to answer the criticisms 
of Celsus against the Jews and the Scriptures, 
and against the Christians, he examined the works 
of Josephus carefully and employed and ap- 
propriated all that was applicable to this defense 
of the Jews and of the mission and teachings of 
Jesus. Had this paragraph been in the works 
of Josephus at that time, Origen would have 
brought it forth in his reply to Celsus, for this 
paragraph contains the particular statements 
which Origen was most in need of and which he 
nowhere found. 

When one has read Origen's account of the 
death of James, taken from Josephus, it is diffi- 
cult to believe that Origen wrote as one knowing 
of the paragraph in Josephus which relates to 
Jesus. "This James," says Origen, "was of so 
shining a character among the people, on ac- 
count of his righteousness, that Flavius Josephus, 
when in his 20th book of the Jewish Antiquities, 
he had a mind to set down what was the cause 
why the people (Jews) suffered such miseries, till 
the very holy house was demolished, he said : 'these 
things befell them by the anger of God, on ac- 



CRITICISMS 53 

count of what they had dared to do to James, 
the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ ;' and 
wonderful it is, that while he did not receive Jesus 
for Christ, he did nevertheless bear witness that 
James was so righteous a man." He says farther: 
"The people thought they had suffered these 
things for the sake of James." (Comment in 
Matt. Page 234, A. D. 230.) 

An historian, writing to-day of the destruction 
of Jersualem and of the Jewish nation, would not 
attribute this calamity to the unjust execution 
of one of that nation's citizens by the Sanhedrin, 
but would, with more propriety and truth, at- 
tribute the overthrow of the Jews and Jerusalem 
to the fact that the Jews had rebelled against the 
imperial policy of Rome, had taken up arms 
and actually opposed and defeated the Roman 
garrison stationed in Judea at that time. It was 
due to these things, and not to the wrath of an 
avenging God, that Nero declared war on the 
Jews, and that Titus, under Vespasian, carried 
the war to a successful conclusion, destroyed the 
Jewish nation and demolished the ancient, and 
almost impregnable, city of Jerusalem, which had 
been established in the dim and distant past by 
Melchizedek and christened by him, "Salem." 

We find much more on this important subject 
in Origen's exhaustive work: "Origen adversus 
Celsus" — book 1, pages 35-36, written about A. 
D. 250, viz: "I would say to Celsus, who person- 
ates a Jew, that admitted of John the Baptist, 



54 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

and how he baptized Jesus, that one who lived 
a little while after John and Jesus wrote, how 
that John was a baptiser unto the Remission of 
Sins ; for Josephus testifies, in the 18th book of 
his Jewish Antiquities, that John was the Baptist ; 
and that he promised purification to those that 
were baptized. The same Josephus also, al- 
though he did not believe in Jesus as Christ, 
when he was inquiring after the cause of the de- 
struction of Jerusalem, and of the demolition of 
the temple, and ought to have said that their 
machinations against Jesus were the cause of 
those miseries coming on the people, because they 
had slain that Christ who was foretold by the 
prophets, he, though it were unwillingly, and yet 
as one not remote from the truth, says: 'These 
miseries befell the Jews by way of revenge for 
James the Just, who was the brother of Jesus 
that was called the Christ ; because they had slain 
him who was a most righteous person.' Now this 
James was he whom that generous disciple of 
Jesus, Paul, said he had seen as the Lord's 
brother, which relation implies not so much near- 
ness of blood, or the sameness of education, as it 
does the agreement of manners and preaching. 
If, therefore, he says the destruction of Jerusalem 
befell the Jews for the sake of James, with how 
much greater reason might he have said that it 
happened for the sake of Jesus." 

In Eusebius (Eccles. Hist. Book 1, Chap. II), 
is an account of the martyrdom of James taken 



CRITICISMS 55 

from Josephus ; we also find there the paragraph 
touching Jesus which we have been considering. 
This is the first notice we have of the much dis- 
puted paragraph. However, Eusebius does not 
put it in the same order, or place, in which it 
now appears in Josephus' works. Eusebius 
wrote this book about A. D. 330, five years after 
the council of Nicaea, and the inference is that 
this paragraph was interpolated in the work of 
Josephus shortly after the council referred to, 
for the purpose of supporting the doctrines 
affirmed by that council. A certain person, a 
presbyter of the Christian Church at Rome, 
named Caius, was charged with having made this 
interpolation, as we shall presently see. This 
theory has support in the fact that the Greek 
text of several of the gospels was changed at 
about this time and evidently for the same pur- 
pose. Even the apostle's creed was changed 
about this time, or a little later. The creed as 
we have it now, and as it has been written and 
used since the latter part of the fifth century, 
contains doctrine which is not found in the creed 
as originally written and used prior to the fifth 
century. 

St. Ambrose, A. D. 360, quotes from Josephus, 
as Eusebius had done earlier, and then criticises 
the Jews in this manner : "If the Jews do not be- 
lieve us, let them at least believe their own 
writers. Josephus, whom they esteem a very 
great man, hath said this, and yet hath! he spoken 



56 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

truth after such a manner; and so far was his 
mind wandered from the right way, that even he 
was not a believer as to what he himself said; 
but thus he spake, in order to deliver historical 
truth, because he thought it not lawful for him 
to deceive while yet he was no believer, because 
of the hardness of his heart and his perfidious in- 
tention. However, it was no prejudice to the 
truth that he was a disbeliever ; but this adds more 
weight to his testimony that while he was an un- 
believer, and unwilling this should be true, he 
has not denied it to be so." 

Observe now how a later writer has misquoted, 
misunderstood or falsified Josephus: Johan 
Malela, Chronology, A. D. 850.— "From that 
time began the destruction of the Jews, as 
Josephus, the philosopher of the Jews, hath writ- 
ten ; who also said this ; 'that from the time the 
Jews crucified Christ, who was a good and right- 
eous man, the land of Judea was never free from 
trouble.' These things the same Josephus, the 
Jew, has related in his writings." 

From Photius, A. D. 860. — ■. . . "Josephus 
here speaks of the divinity of Christ, who is our 
true God, in a way very like to what we use, 
declaring that the same name of Christ belongs 
to Him and writes of His ineffable generation 
of the Father after such a manner as can not be 
blamed ; which thing may perhaps raise a doubt in 
some, whether Josephus was the author of the work, 
though the phraseology does not at all differ 



CRITICISMS 57 

from this man's other works. However I have found 
in some papers, that this discourse was not writ- 
ten by Josephus, but by one Gaius, a presbyter." 

It is important to know that this man was a 
bishop of the Eastern Church and resided at 
Constantinople. He was a Greek scholar of much 
erudition, but not familiar with the Latin tongue. 
Many critics are of the opinion that the presbyter, 
"Gaius," to whom Photius refers, is the same 
presbyter that Eusebius referred to under the 
name of "Caius." 

Here follows an erroneous statement attributed 
to Josephus by Suidas, A. D. 980: "We have 
found Josephus, who hath written about the tak- 
ing of Jerusalem, of which Eusebius makes fre- 
quent mention in his Ecclesiastical History, say- 
ing openly in his memoirs of the captivity, that 
Jesus officiated in the temple with the Priests ; 
thus have we found Josephus saying, a man of an- 
cient times, and not very long after the apostles." 

The following statement by the writer, 
Theophylact, in Joan, A. D. 1080, misquotes 
Josephus : "The city of the Jews was taken and 
the wrath of God was kindled against them, as 
also Josephus witnesses, that this came upon them 
on account of the death of Jesus" ! 

It is worthy of mention here, that the early 
Greek theologian, Clement of Alexandria, writ- 
ing A. D. 193-211, often refers to the works of 
Josephus, but never cites the paragraph which 
we are considering. Also the zealous and fiery 



58 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

African bishop, Tertullian, A. D. 150-220, fre- 
quently refers to the writings of Josephus touch- 
ing the Jews, but nowhere refers to this disputed 
paragraph relating to Jesus. 

Plutarch, born A. D. 65, teacher of Trajan 
and an historian of note, author of the incompar- 
able and immortal "Lives," makes no reference to 
Jesus, to the apostles or to Christianity. This 
omission is painfully noticeable. 

Epictetus, Stoic philosopher, A. D. 89, refers 
to the Christians casually in his "Ethical Dis- 
course" as "Galilaei," or Galileans. He con- 
sidered them a Jewish sect. 

Next in order to be considered is Pliny the 
Younger, the accomplished scholar, consul under 
Trajan, born A. D. 60. We find him governor 
of Bithynia and writing to Trajan asking for in- 
structions in prosecutions of Christians. From 
his most important letter on this subject is the 
following: "Having never been present at any 
trials concerning those who profess Christianity, 
I am unacquainted, not only with the nature of 
their crimes, or the measure of their punishment, 
but how far it is, proper to enter into an examina- 
tion concerning them. ... I asked them 
whether they were Christians, if they admitted 
it, I repeated the question twice, and threatened 
them with punishment ; if they persisted, I ordered 
them to be at once punished ; for I was persuaded, 
whatever the nature of their opinions might be, 



CRITICISMS 59 

a contumacious and inflexible obstinacy certainly 
deserved correction. . . . There were others 
also brought before me possessed with the same 
infatuation, but being Roman citizens, I directed 
them to be sent to Rome." He then goes on to 
say: "They affirmed the whole of their guilt, or 
their error, was that they met on a stated day 
before it was light, and addressed a form of 
prayer to Christ, as to a divinity, binding them- 
selves by solemn oath, not for the purposes of 
any wicked design, but never to commit any 
fraud, theft, or adultery, never to falsify their 
word, nor deny a trust. . . . Then to eat in 
common a harmless meal. . . . To this I 
forbade the meeting of any assemblies. 
After receiving this account I judged it so much 
the more necessary to endeavor to extort the real 
truth by putting two female slaves to tor- 
ture. . . . But all I could discover was evi- 
dence of an absurd and extravagant supersti- 
tion. ... I deemed it therefore expedient to 
adjourn all further proceedings in order to con- 
sult you. . . . This contagious superstition 
is not confined to the cities only but has spread 
its infection among the neighboring villages and 
country." These excerpts show the object and 
meaning of this letter. 

The emperor's reply. — 
"Trajan to Pliny: 

"You have adopted the right course, my dear- 
est Secundus, in investigating the charges against 



60 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

the Christians who were brought before you. It 
is not possible to lay down any general rule for 
all such cases. Do not go out of your way to 
look for them. If indeed they should be brought 
before you, and the crime is proved, they must 
be punished; with the restriction, however, that 
where the party denies he is a Christian, 1 and shall 
make it evident that he is not, by invoking our 
gods, let him be pardoned upon his repentance. 
Anonymous information ought not to be received 
in any sort of prosecution. It is introducing a 
very dangerous precedent, and is quite foreign 
to the spirit of our age." 

These letters were written in the first year, or 
close thereto, of the second century, sixty-nine 
years after the crucifixion of Jesus, and they show 
clearly that the well-informed people and gover- 
nors of Rome did not know what Christianity 
was, and that the doctrines of Christians were 
generally thought to be those of a sect of the 
Jews and consequently unimportant. It is in- 
teresting to read another letter from Pliny to 
Trajan and Trajan's reply, for they disclose the 
state of mind of those eminent men touching 
public worship. — 

"Pliny to Trajan: 

"We have celebrated, Sir, with great joy and 
festivity, those votive solemnities which were pub- 
licly proclaimed as formerly, and renewed them 
the present year, accompanied by the soldiers and 



CRITICISMS 61 

provincials, who zealously joined with us in im- 
ploring the gods that they would be graciously 
pleased to preserve you and the Republic in that 
state of prosperity which your many and great 
virtues, particularly your piety and reverence to- 
wards them, so justly merit." 

"Trajan to Pliny: 

"It was agreeable to me to learn by your letter 
that the army and the provincials seconded you, 
with the most joyful unanimity, in those vows 
which you paid and renewed to the immortal gods 
for my preservation and prosperity." 

We now turn to the historian Tacitus, an able 
and conscientious recorder of events, born A. D. 
65. Referring to a number of illustrious citizens 
who had suffered banishment, or ostracism, in 
the reign of Claudius, but who, under the consul- 
ship of Nero and Piso, had been restored to their 
former rank, Tacitus proceeds to say: "And 
Pomponia Graecina, a lady of distinction, charged 
with embracing a foreign superstition, and 
married to Plautius, who upon his return from 
Britain entered the city in ovation, was con- 
signed to the abjudication of her husband. 
Plautius assembled her kindred, and in observance 
of primitive institution, having in their presence 
held solemn inquisition upon the conduct and 
character of his wife, adjudged her innocent." 
Referring to this incident, Justin Lipsius, a 
translator of Tacitus, says that the "foreign 



62 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

superstition" here referred to was primitive 
Christianity. This was about the time, or a little 
earlier, Paul gave the name "Christian" to his 
followers at Antioch. 

In his "Annals" Tacitus gives an account of 
the burning of Rome by Nero, and shows how 
Nero sought to put the blame of it on the Chris- 
tians. He also gives an account of the Christians : 
"But not all the relief that could come from man ; 
not all the bounties that the Prince could bestow ; 
nor all the atonements that could be presented to 
the gods, availed to relieve Nero from the 
infamy of being believed to have ordered the 
conflagration. Hence to suppress the rumor, he 
falsely charged with guilt, and punished with the 
most exquisite tortures, the persons commonly 
called Christians, who were hated for their 
enormities. Christus, the founder of that name, 
was put to death as a criminal by Pontius Pilate, 
procurator of Judea, in the reign of Tiberius, 
but the pernicious superstition, repressed for a 
time, broke out again, not only through Judea, 
where the mischief originated, but through the 
city of Rome also, whither all things horrible and 
disgraceful flow, from all quarters, as to a com- 
mon receptacle, and where they are encouraged. 
Accordingly, first those were seized who confessed 
they were Christians ; next on their information, 
a vast multitude were convicted, not so much on 
the charge of burning the city, as of hating the 
human race. And in their deaths they were also 



CRITICISMS 63 

made the subjects of sport, for they were covered 
with the hides of wild beasts, and worried to death 
by dogs, or nailed to crosses, or set fire to, and 
when day declined, burned to serve for nocturnal 
lights. Nero offered his own gardens for that 
spectacle and exhibited a circensian game, indis- 
criminately mingling with the common people in 
the habit of a charioteer, or else standing in his 
chariot. Whence a feeling of compassion arose 
toward the sufferers, though guilty and deserving 
to be made examples of by capital punishment, 
because they seemed not to be cut off for the pub- 
lic good, but victims to the ferocity of one man." 
This historian, like all others of the first century, 
does not distinguish the Christians as such from 
the Jews, but regards them a sect of the Jews, 
and at that time all Rome hated the Jews. The 
"Christus" referred to here is Christ. 

Contemporaneous with Tacitus and Pliny, 
Juvenal lived and wrote his justly famous 
"Satires." Juvenal was a good man. He 
taught us morality by antithesis ; belonged to no 
school of positive ethics, yet ever declaimed against 
the immorality of his age, and vigorously satirized 
the bad. He was not of Consular rank, as were 
his two more brilliant contemporaries, but was 
of the middle class, with parentage still lower. 
In sympathy and in environment he was nearer 
to the Christians of his day than any other 
scholar of the first and second centuries. His 
writing of the "Satires" was synchronous with the 



64 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

writing of the fourth gospel by its author or au- 
thors. We would naturally expect something of 
Juvenal touching "Christus" and His disciples, 
but he gives us not a word. In his first "Satire," 
wherein he recounts the crimes of Nero, Juvenal 
refers to the sufferings of the Christians follow- 
ing the burning of Rome, though he does not call 
them "Christians" nor does he indicate whether 
those persecuted were Jews or Gentiles. He says : 

With those, some night, thou shalt be called to shine, 
Who writhe in tortures mid the blazing pine, 
With throats transfixed all smoking as they stand, 
And raise deep furrows in the fatal sand. 

Juvenal gives ten lines in his XIV Satire in 
which to express, in a truly characteristic man- 
ner, his opinion of the orthodox; "Jewish supersti- 
tion." The same general opinion is voiced by 
many Roman authors of the first and second 
centuries. Juvenal says : 

There be, who, bred in sabbath- fearing lore, 

The vague divinity of clouds adore; 

Who, like their sires, their skin to priests resign, 

And hate like human flesh the flesh of swine. 

The laws of Rome those blinded bigots slight, 

In superstitious dread of Jewish rite: 

To Moses and his mystic volume true, 

They set no traveller right except a Jew! 

By them no cooling spring was ever shown, 

Save to the thirsty circumcised alone! 

Martial, another writer of satire, who lived 



CRITICISMS 65 

and wrote at this time, mentions this incident: 
A special tax had been levied on the Jews of 
Palestine in the reign of Domitian. The Chris- 
tians asked exemption ; the Procurator inquired of 
them: — "Are ye not circumcised?" "Yes," re- 
plied the Christians. "Then ye are Jews and 
must pay the tax." 

In the works of Justinus, fourth century, A. 
D., there is printed a letter from a "Gentile" to 
Diognetus, preceptor to Marcus Aurelius, in 
which the writer inquires : "What is the religion 
of the Christians? What god do they worship? 
Why is it that their religion makes them despise 
the world, death and the gods of, the Greeks ? If 
Jewish why do they oppose the Jewish super- 
stition? What is it that makes them love one 
another and why is it that this religion is in- 
troduced now and not before?" These questions 
from an unknown "Gentile" of A. D. 140, are 
interesting enough. 

Suetonius, A. D. 70, historian and friend of the 
younger Pliny, was secretary to Emperor Had- 
rian. He regarded the Christians a sect of 
the Jews, and speaks of them as "a class of men 
with a strange and pestilent superstition." It is 
safe for us to assume that in this statement 
Suetonius reflects the opinion held by the emperor 
and the governing class. It is remarkable that 
this historian "of the Caesars" has but a word 
to say of the Christians. 

Domitian sentenced to death his nephew, 



66 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

Flavius Clemens, a Christian of Consular rank. He 
was executed, along with a number of Christians, 
in A. D. 90. The sentence recites that these were 
"guilty of atheism and Jewish manners." To 
proselyte to Judaism was a crime punishable by 
death or forfeiture of property discretionary with 
the pro-consuls. Atheism in Rome, at that time, 
was disbelief in the gods, but the informative part 
of this sentence is, that in the reign of Domitian, 
Christianity was held to be a Jewish institution. 
Lucian, a rhetorician and writer of real liter- 
ary merit, comes to us fresh from far off Syria, 
for he was born at Samosata on the Euphrates. 
He was a Greek scholar and familiar with all the 
schools of Greek philosophy. He was born about 
A. D. 140, and was a real iconoclast, for he em- 
ployed the severest sarcasm in writing of the 
gods of the Greeks and opposed with ridicule as 
well the doctrines of the Greek schools. With a 
bold imagination he surpassed Jules Verne in 
originality of creation and description. He as- 
sumed at the outset in life that "anyone will be 
looked up to and get a reputation if only he has 
impudence and abuse." Putting this assump- 
tion into practice, he won an imperishable name 
as a writer of satire, and claimed that "men's ac- 
tions always fall short of their professions." He 
studied the several schools of philosophy, "for 
each claimed to embody the best system of morals 
and to rest on truth itself," and found that, 
"each school was antagonistic to the others ;" 



CRITICISMS 67 

therefore he claimed that truth was a relative 
term only. Late in life, he held a lucrative office, 
in Egypt, which he mentioned thus : "I lent my 
neck to be bound by a golden collar." Para- 
phrasing Lucian, the attitude of the philosophers 
of his time is of interest: Representatives of the 
different schools of philosophy had met to dine 
together for "sweet discourse;" whereupon they 
disagreed on the question of "exact truth;" fol- 
lowing which they pulled one another's beards, 
and spit in one another's faces ; then they pro- 
ceeded to knock the table over and throw the 
dishes at one another, and finally disbanded in a 
free-for-all fight ; Lucian thereupon concludes 
that there is no such thing* as "truth." Now that 
we know the bent of Lucian's mind, and the char- 
acter of his thoughts, his humor, and his mis- 
anthropy, let us note his expressions touching 
Jesus and the Christians. In a letter addressed, 
— "Lucian to Cronius," in which Lucian de- 
scribes the death of Proteus, he says : "It was now 
that he came across the priests and scribes of the 
Christians, in Palestine, and picked up their queer 
creed. I can tell you, he soon convinced them of 
his superiority; prophet, elder, ruler of the 
synagogue, he was everything at once ; expounded 
their books, commented on them, wrote books 
himself. They took him for a god, accepted his 
laws, and declared him their president. The 
Christians, you know, worship a man to this 
day, — the distinguished personage who introduced 



68 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

their novel rites, and was crucified on that ac- 
count. Well! the end of it was that Proteus was 
arrested and thrown into prison. This was the 
very thing to lend an air to his favorite arts of 
clap-trap and wonder-working; he was now a 
made man. The Christians took it all very seri- 
ously; he was no sooner in prison, than they be- 
gan trying every means to get him out again, 
but without success. Everything else that could 
be done for him they most devoutly did. They 
thought of nothing else. Orphans and ancient 
widows might be seen hanging about the prison 
from break of day. Their officials bribed the 
gaolers to let them sleep inside with him. Ele- 
gant dinners were conveyed in ; their sacred writ- 
ings were read; and our old friend Proteus be- 
came for them 'the modern Socrates.' In some 
of the Asiatic cities, too, the Christian communi- 
ties put themselves to the expense of sending 
deputations, with offers of sympathy, assistance, 
and legal advice. The activity of these people 
in dealing with any matter that affects their com- 
munity, is something extraordinary; they spare 
no trouble, no expense. Proteus, all this time, 
was making quite an income on the strength of 
his bondage ; money came pouring in. You see, 
these misguided creatures start with the general 
conviction that they are immortal for all time, 
which explains the contempt of death and volun- 
tary self-devotion which are so common among 
them ; and then it was impressed on them by their 



CRITICISMS 69 

original lawgiver that they are all brothers, from 
the moment that they are converted, and deny 
the gods of Greece, and worship the crucified 
Sage, and live after his laws. All this they take 
quite on trust, with the result that they despise 
all worldly goods alike, regarding them merely 
as common property. Now an adroit, unscrupu- 
lous fellow, who has seen the world, has only to 
get among these simple souls, and his fortune is 
made; he plays with them." 

Lucian also refers to the doctrine of the trinity 
and to the apostle Paul; "The Galilean who as- 
cended to the third heaven and was renewed by 
the waters of baptism." 

The Emperor Aurelius, A. D. 121-180, in 
his ethical work, the "Meditations," refers to the 
Christians but once and that disparagingly, men- 
tioning their "obstinacy" and fondness for 
martyrdom or "tragic show." He says : "What a 
soul that is which is ready, if at any moment it 
must be separated from the body, and ready either 
to be extinguished, or dispersed, or continue to 
exist; but so that this readiness comes from a 
man's own judgment, not from mere obstinacy, 
as with the Christians, but considerately and with 
dignity and in a way to persuade another, with- 
out tragic show." 

Hierocles, proconsul at Bithynia, A. D. 284, 
wrote a book addressed to the Christians in which 
he affirmed that their "sacred writings contained 
contradictions" and that in "moral influence and 



70 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

miraculous power Jesus of Nazareth was inferior 
to Apollonius of Tyana." This work is lost and 
we know of it only by the, replies to it made later 
by Eusebius and Lactantius. 

CELSUS 

Celsus, a Greek and of the Epicurean school, 
was born about A. D. 180. He wrote the most 
profuse criticism of the Christian religion of any 
of the early authors. His work, titled: "A True 
Discourse," comprised over two hundred proposi- 
tions and covered the subject of biblical criticism 
from Moses down to his time. His treatise is lost 
and we know of it only from what appears in the 
work of Origen, titled, "Origen adversus Celsus." 
On the whole, Celsus was a coarse and prejudiced 
critic and we feel instinctively repulsed from him 
and drawn towards the more accomplished scholar 
and philosopher, Origen. 

It is impossible to extendedly consider here the 
criticisms of Celsus. It required six hundred 
pages of fine print for Origen to reply to those 
criticisms. The most interesting feature of this 
work by Origen, and of the writings of the pre- 
Nicene theologians generally, is the state of mind 
which these writings disclose. While those men 
were clear and deep thinkers, the fact remains 
that their minds were hot beds of superstition and 
incapable of judging and correctly classifying 
many of the ordinary phenomena of life. Their 
hearts were right, but the angle of their vision 



CRITICISMS 71 

was distorted, their perspective perverted and 
their premises false. 

Origen, the greatest theologian of his day, born 
at Alexandria, A. D. 185, wasl familiar with every 
school of philosophy and well versed in all the 
history of his time. He was an ascetic and a self- 
emasculated eunuch. I shall notice but a few 
criticisms, compared with the whole work, and 
deal with them briefly. 

Touching the prophecies, the discussion shows 
that the one prophesied of was not proclaimed by 
the prophets as the "Son of God," but as "Im- 
manuel," and other similar names. This may 
seem to descend to the level of casuistry, but it 
is something more than a "distinction without a 
difference," for it enabled the orthodox Jew to 
say to the Christian Jew, "Our prophecies no- 
where mention the coming of a 'Son of God.' " 

It is charged that the Christians brought down 
upon themselves the disfavor of the Roman magis- 
trates because they persisted in holding secret 
meetings in violation of the laws. This was ad- 
mitted by Origen and justified. But let us note 
the accusations and the answers. My comment 
will follow the latter. 

Celsus: "Immoralities were practiced in these 

secret meetings." 
Origen: "We deny this." 

This can be admitted only in exceptional cases. 
Tertullian, when he left the Catholic body and 



72 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

joined the "Montanist" body of Christians, states 
several instances of this kind. I know of no other 
testimony from a Christian source. I have ex- 
amined this charge with care. I have before me 
the criticism of Tertullian, made after he had left 
the Catholic body, which is briefly this: that the 
churches were crowded with people of all rank. 
Many who had been criminals came to the altars 
for forgiveness of sins, "whom the temples and 
the gods of Rome would not absolve." And these 
mixed multitudes put in danger many of the in- 
stitutions, or rites of the Church; especially the 
rite of the "Agapae," or love feast, in which the 
indiscriminate and unreserved kiss was indulged. 
This was more than human nature, and the 
"Mediterranean climate" could stand, and scandal 
and even tragedies followed, and cases of more 
immoral practices are specifically mentioned. 5 But 
Tertullian conveys the idea that the irregular 
lives within the Church were the exception and 
that the majority were good people. 

Celsus: "Christians imitate the polytheists in 
establishing chambers of mysteries in their 
churches with pass words and degrees, and 
rites of initiation." 

Origen: "We deny this." 

5 "Sed majoris est agape, quia per hanc adolescentes tui 
cum sororibus dormiunt appendices scilicet gulae lascivia 
et luxuria." 



CRITICISMS 73 

To this we have but one instance that I am 
aware of and that by the "Valentinians," a 
Christian body of some importance. The Valen- 
tinians divided their church, or societies, into 
chambers, degrees and orders, and the votary was 
initiated into these orders by a solemn ceremony. 
The first service appears to have been open to all 
classes, after this service was held, and before the 
"initiated'' resolved themselves into a second 
meeting, a deacon would step to the door, then 
turn around facing the audience, and in a loud 
voice, after the manner of a bailiff calling court 
to order, would say : "Come out all ye catechumen, 
all ye who are possessed and who are uninitiated." 

Celsus : "It is by the name of certain demons 
and the use of incantation that Christians 
manifest miraculous power." 

Origen: "It is by the name of Jesus that de- 
mons have been and are driven from men." 

Celsus : "Faith is not the quality of mind which 
men should choose to govern action and de- 
termine propositions but rather reason and 
judgment." 

Origen : "It is by faith that men take a voyage, 
that they sow seed in the Spring and finally 
it is by faith that a man takes a wife." 

This last proposition is certainly doubtful and 
I reserve it, as Aristotle would say, for "separate 
consideration." 



74 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

Celsus: "The star and the wise men who fol- 
lowed it to the cradle of Jesus were not gen- 
erally seen by the people of Bethlehem, and 
that this story, for several reasons given, 
must be false." 

Origen: (In part) "It has been observed that, 
on the occasion of great events, and of 
mighty changes in terrestrial things, such 
stars are wont to appear, indicating either 
the removal of dynasties or the breaking out 
of wars, or the happening of such circum- 
stances as may cause commotion upon the 
earth. ... If, then, at the commence- 
ment of new dynasties, or on occasion of 
other important events, there arise a comet, 
or any similar celestial body, why should it 
be a matter of wonder that at the birth of 
Him who was to introduce a new doctrine to 
the human race and to make known His teach- 
ings not only to Jews but also to Greeks and 
to many of the barbarous nations besides, a 
star should have arisen?" 

Celsus: (Characterizing Christian miracle 
workers as "Jugglers" proceeds) "Are they 
not like unto those who were taught by the 
Egyptians, who, in the market places, in re- 
turn for a few obols, will impart the knowl- 
edge of their most venerated arts,' and will 
expel demons from men, and dispel diseases, 
and invoke the souls of heroes, and exhibit 
expensive banquets, and tables, and dishes, 



CRITICISMS 75 

and dainties, having no real existence, and 
who will put in motion, as if alive, what are 
not living animals but which have only the 
appearance of life; and now since these men 
can perform such wonderful feats, shall we 
of necessity conclude that they are Sons of 
God?" 
Origen: (Not denying but asserting for Chris- 
tians greater and more wonderful works) 
"The name of Jesus can still remove distrac- 
tions from the minds of men and expel de- 
mons and take away diseases and produce 
a marvelous meekness of spirit and a com- 
plete change of character, and give assur- 
ance of, concerning God and Christ and a 
judgment to come." 

It appears that Christians and "Jugglers" 
alike, could cast out demons in those days with 
the ease that a physician can to-day, "for a few 
obols," cast out worms from a child with a dose 
of vermifuge. 

Touching the sublime questions of "fore-or- 
dination" and "predestination," this interesting 
bit of Greek logic is introduced: "If it is decreed 
that you should recover from your disease, you 
will recover, whether you call in a physician or 
not; but if it is decreed that you should not re- 
cover, you will not recover whether you call in a 
physician or no. But it is certainly decreed 
either you should recover, or that you should not 



76 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

recover; therefore it is vain that you call in a 
physician." 

Celsus: (Complaining that his discourses with 
theologians were met only with the injunc- 
tion, 'Believe,' 'Believe,' Celsus states force- 
fully) "A Greek must be convinced of the 
truth of a proposition before he can believe 
it and faith can only follow understanding." 
(Celsus also charges) "The Church as- 
semblies do not compare favorably 1 with those 
at the temples and with civil bodies." 

Origen: (Denying this, Origin makes compari- 
sons of the churches of Corinth, Alexandria 
and Athens) "For the church at Athens is a 
meek and stable body, as being one which de- 
sires to please God, who is over all things, 
whereas the assembly of Athens is given to 
sedition and is not at all to be compared to 
the church of that city." 

In the discussion of Gehenna, Tartarus and 
other hot places, Origen manifests some deception 
and withholds the insignificant meaning of 
Gehenna, lest it might diminish the fear of hell 
among men; "But," says he of Gehenna, "the re- 
marks which might be made on this topic are 
neither to be made to all, nor to be uttered on 
the present occasion ; for it is not unattended with 
danger to commit to writing the explanation of 
such subjects, seeing the multitude need no further 



CRITICISMS 77 

instruction than that which relates to the punish- 
ment of sinners, for to ascend beyond this is not 
expedient, for sake of those who are with diffi- 
culty restrained even by fear of eternal punish- 
ment." 

Celsus: (Claiming that the ethical thoughts 
contained in the gospels were taken from the 
Greek schools, refers especially to this one) 
"Whosoever shall strike thee on one cheek, 
turn to him the other also" (and he gives its 
parallel from Plato). 

Socrates: "Must we never do injustice to any?" 

Crito: "Certainly not." 

Socrates: "And since we must never do injus- 
tice, must we not return an injustice for an 
injustice that has been done to us, as most 
people think?" 

Crito : "It seems to me that we should not." 

Socrates : "But tell me, Crito, may we do evil to 
anyone or not?" 

Crito : "Certainly not." 

Socrates: "Well is it just, as it is commonly 
said, for one who has suffered wrong, to do 
wrong in return, or is it unjust?" 

Crito : "It is unjust." 

Socrates : "Yes, for to do harm to a man is the 
same as to do him injustice." 

Celsus: (Then Celsus undertakes to show that 
if Christians worshiped one God alone, 
rather than three, they might with more 



78 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

propriety oppose the polytheism of the 
Greeks and inquires) "If the Romans will 
close their temples and disband their legions 
and worship the Christians' 'God of Hosts' 
will He assist them in their imperial policy 
of governing the world?" 

Origen : "He will." 

Celsus: "How is it then that the Jews, after 
having followed Jehovah for centuries are 
now without so much as a, patch of ground?" 

Origen: "Because of the treatment the Jews 
have given to their prophets and to Jesus." 

Celsus: "Jesus was not a god because His life, 
His form and His voice were not consistent 
with, or agreeable to, our ideas of a god. 
He did not come up to the average of men 
in the qualities we ascribe to a god." 

Origen: "These are indeed trifling and al- 
together contemptible objections. For our- 
reply to him will be, that he who is believed 
among the Greeks to be a god, viz., the Pyth- 
ian and Didymean Apollo, makes use of such 
a voice for his Pythian priestess at Delphi, 
and for his prophetess at Miletus ; and yet 
neither the Pythian nor Didymean is charged 
by the Greeks with not being a god." 

Celsus : "How shall we deem Him to be God, who, 
not only in other respects, as was currently 
reported, performed none of His promises, 
but who, also, after we had convicted Him, 
and condemned Him as deserving of punish- 



CRITICISMS 79 

ment, was found attempting to conceal Him- 
self, and endeavoring to escape in a most dis- 
graceful manner, and who was betrayed by 
those whom He called disciples? And yet 
He who was a God could neither flee nor be 
led away a prisoner; and least of all could 
He be deserted and delivered up by those 
who had been His associates, and had shared 
all things in common, and had had Him for 
their teacher, who was deemed to be a 
Savior, and a Son of the greatest God, and 
an Angel." 
Origen: "To which we reply, that even we do 
not suppose the body of Jesus, which was 
then an object of sight and perception, to 
have been God. And why do I say His body? 
Nay, not even His soul, of which it is re- 
lated, — 'My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, 
even unto death.' But as according to the 
Jewish manner of speaking, — 'I am the Lord, 
the God of all flesh,' and, 'Before me there 
was no God formed, neither shall there be 
after me.' God is believed to be He who em- 
ploys the soul and body of the prophet as an 
instrument ; and as, according to the Greeks, 
He who says ; 'I know both the number of 
the sands, and the measures of the sea, and 
I understand a dumb man, and hear him who 
does not speak,' is considered to be a god 
when speaking, and making himself heard 
through the Pythian priestess ; so, accord- 



80 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

ing to our view, it was the Logos God, and 
Son of the God of all things, who spake in 
Jesus these words : — 'I am the way and the 
truth, and the life'; and these, — 'I am the 
door' ; and these : 'I am the living bread 
that came down from Heaven' ; and other ex- 
pressions similar to these. We therefore 
charge the Jews with not acknowledging 
Him to be God, to whom testimony was borne 
in many passages by prophets, to the effect 
that He was a mighty power, and a God next 
to the God and Father of all things. For we 
assert that it was to Him the Father gave 
the command, when in the Mosaic account of 
the creation He uttered the words, 'Let there 
be light,' and 'Let there be a firmament,' and 
gave the injunction with regard to those 
other creative acts which were performed; 
and that to Him also were addressed the 
words: 'Let us make man in our own im- 
age and likeness,' and that the Logos, when 
commanded, obeyed all the Father's will, and 
we make these statements not from our own 
conjectures, but because we believe the proph- 
ecies circulated among the Jews, in which 
it is said of God, and of the works of crea- 
tion, in express words, as follows : 'He spake, 
and they were made; He commanded, and 
they were created.' Now if God gave the 
command, and the creatures were formed, 
who, according to the view of the spirit of 



CRITICISMS 81 

prophecy, could He be that was able to carry 
out such commands of the Father, save Him 
who, so to speak, is the living Logos and the 
Truth? And that the Gospels do not con- 
sider Him who in Jesus said these words ; 'I 
am the way, and the Truth and the Life,' to 
have been of so circumscribed a nature, as 
to have an existence nowhere out of the soul 
and body of Jesus, is evident both from many 
considerations, and from a few instances of 
the following kind which we shall quote. 
John the Baptist, when predicting that the 
Son of God was to appear immediately, not 
in that body and soul, but as manifesting 
himself everywhere, says regarding Him: 
'There stands in the midst of you one whom 
ye know not, who cometh after me.' For if 
he had thought that the Son of God, was 
only there, where was the visible body of Je- 
sus, how could he have said: 'There 
stands in the midst of you one whom ye know 
not?' and Jesus himself, in raising the minds 
of His disciples to higher thoughts of the 
Son of God, says : 'Where two or three are 
gathered together in my name, there am I 
in the midst of you.' And of the same nature 
is this promise to His disciples ; 'Lo, I am 
with you always, even to the end of the world.' 
And we quote these passages, making no dis- 
tinction between the Son of God and Jesus. 
For the soul and body of Jesus formed one 



82 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

being with the Logos of God. Now if ac- 
cording to Paul's 1 teaching, 'He that is joined 
unto the Lord is one spirit,' every one who 
understands what being joined to the Lord 
is, and who has been actually joined to Him, 
is one spirit with the Lord; how should not 
that being be one in a far greater and more 
divine degree which was once united with 
the Logos of God? He indeed manifested 
Himself among the Jews as the power of 
God, by the miracles He performed, which 
Celsus suspected were accomplished by sor- 
cery, but which the Jews attributed to Beel- 
zebub." 

Here is a most interesting bit of theology from 
the most eminent theologian of the second cen- 
tury; this was written one hundred years before 
the Nicene council denned Christian doctrine. 

Ceesus: (Writing against the possibility of a 
resurrection of a dead body and referring to 
Jesus, Celsus asks) "How can the dead man 
be immortal?" 

Origen: "Since the resurrection of Jesus Christ 
is a subject of mockery to unbelievers, we 
shall quote the words of Plato that Herus, 
the son of Armenius, rose from the funeral 
pile twelve days after he had been laid upon 
it, and gave an account of what he had seen 
in Hades ; and as we are replying to unbe- 
lievers it will not be amiss to refer in this 



CRITICISMS 83 

place to what Heraclides relates respecting 
the woman who was deprived of life. 6 And 
many persons are recorded to have risen from 
their tombs, not only on the day of their 
burial, but also on the day following. What 
wonder is it, then, if in the case of one who 
performed many marvelous things, both be- 
yond the power of man and with such full- 
ness of evidence, that he who could not deny 
their performance, endeavored to calumniate 
them by comparing them to acts of sorcery, 
should have manifested also in His death 
some greater display of divine power, so that 
His soul, if it pleased, might leave its body, 
and having performed certain offices out of it, 
might return again at pleasure? Such a 
declaration is Jesus said to have made in the 
Gospel of John, when He said: 'No man 
taketh my life from me, but I lay it down of 
myself. I have power to lay it down and I 
have power to take it again.' . . . Let 
him who wishes to understand know, that it 
is not the dead man who is immortal, but He 
who rose from the dead." 

When we examine the history of civilized man 
at the point where mythology gives way to au- 
thentic narrative, where tradition emerges from 
the gloom of uncertainty and superstition, we find 
many accounts of "resurrections" of the dead sim- 

e Plin. Nat. Hist. Book VII, c52. 



84 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

ilar to the two instances cited in the foregoing 
paragraph. 

Origen might have mentioned the circumstance 
of Aristeas of Proconnesus who rose twice from 
death if we may believe tradition, and who was 
worshiped by a considerable following. 

Apuleius, a gifted author and a contemporary 
of Origen, relates an incident in his work, "The 
Florida" which is interesting, more particularly 
from the circumstances attendant upon it. 
The dead man had been an important personage, 
the obsequies were imposing and partook of the 
character of a public spectacle. The funeral 
pyre had been built unusually high and the en- 
vironment and accessories were all impressive. 
The torch had been applied and the assembled 
multitude stood uncovered and silent, when it was 
observed that the corpse was coming to life. A 
physician rushed upon the burning pyre and 
snatched the body from the flames. The man re- 
vived. The crowd now murmured and became an- 
gry that the spectacle had been interrupted; the 
man's relatives were apologetic. Apuleius closes 
the narrative thus : "The assembly and even the 
relatives protested but finally yielded. They 
claimed, and with some apparent justice, that the 
corpse had no right to interrupt the ceremony and 
withdraw from the care of the undertakers and 
turn back from his journey to the Infernal Re- 
gions." 

I am surprised that Origen refers to instances 



CRITICISMS 85 

of this character in connection with the resurrec- 
tion of Jesus. A physician to-day would pro- 
nounce all such cases "suspended animation," and 
class them under the science of pathology. No one 
would to-day attribute them to a miraculous cause. 
No one to-day believes with Herod: "That John 
whom I have beheaded hath risen from the dead." 

Celsus: (Criticising the account of the resur- 
rection of Jesus, Celsus says) "If He was 
a God he should have manifested His pow- 
ers openly that He might have been known 
to have been a God universally." 

Origen: . . . "So none could reasonably 
object to the statement of the Apostles, who 
introduce the appearance of Jesus after His 
resurrection as having been made, not to all, 
but to those only whom He knew to have re- 
ceived eyes capable of seeing His resurrec- 
tion." 

This suggests that the attitude of the percipi- 
ent is to be considered in connection with the cir- 
cumstances of the resurrection; — that the phe- 
nomenon was subjective rather than objective. 

Celsus: (Referring to an axiom then current 
relating to Christian beliefs, Celsus states) 
"Such is the power of faith because it seizes 
that which first presents itself that with the 
Christians, it having taken possession of their 
minds, makes them yield the assent which they 



86 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

give to the doctrines of Jesus. . . 
Faith is the power of saying you believe in 
things which are incredible.'" 

Origen: "We have salvation through faith." 

Celsus: "It is not without piety, but none the 
less with error, that the Christians regard 
this mortal Jesus a God." 

Origen: "Let those who make this charge un- 
derstand that He whom we regard and be- 
lieve to have been from the beginning God, 
and the Son of God, is the Very Logos, and 
the Very Wisdom, and the Very Truth; and 
with respect to His mortal body, and the 
human soul which it contained, we assert that 
not by their communion merely with Him but 
by their unity and intermixture, they receive 
the highest powers and after participating 
in His divinity, were changed into God." 

Celsus: "Granting that after Jesus had lived 
and suffered as others live and suffer, and 
that after having laid aside these qualities 
He became a God; in what does He excel 
Aesculapius, Dionysus and Hercules?" 

Origin: "What great deeds have Aesculapius, 
Dionysus and Hercules wrought? And what 
individuals will they be able to point out as 
having been improved in character and made 
better by their words and lives, so that they 
may make good their claims to be gods?" 

This is well stated by Origen. These divinities, 



CRITICISMS 87 

while purporting to serve mankind in profitable 
labors, yet never proclaimed as pure a morality as 
that found in the Lord's Prayer or in His Ser- 
mon on the Mount. The truths of mathematics 
are eternal and unchangeable, and moral princi- 
ples too are immortal, — crucify and bury them 
and they will rise again. 

Celsus: "When the initiators into the Grecian 
mysteries invite to a participation of their 
mysteries at the temples, they make procla- 
mation as follows : 'Every one who has clean 
hands and a prudent tongue, let him come. 
He who is pure from all pollution, and whose 
soul is conscious of no evil, and who has lived 
well and justly — let him come.' Now let us 
hear what kind of persons these Christians 
invite? Every one, they say, who is a sin- 
ner, who is devoid of understanding, who is 
a child, and, to speak generally, whoever is 
unfortunate, him will the Kingdom of God 
receive. Do you not call him a sinner, then, 
who is unjust, and a thief, and a house- 
breaker, and a poisoner, and a committer of 
sacrilege and a robber of the dead? What 
others would a man invite if he were issuing 
a proclamation for an assembly of robbers?" 

Origen : "We invite all men to be healed, and ex- 
hort those who are sinners to come to a con- 
sideration of the doctrines which teach men 
not to sin, and to those who are void of under- 



88 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

standing to come to those who beget wisdom, 
and to those who are children to rise in their 
thoughts to manhood, and those who are un- 
fortunate, to good fortune, or rather to 
blessedness, and when those who have been 
turned towards virtue have made progress, 
and have shown that they have been purified 
by the Word, and have led as far as they can 
a better life, then and not before do we invite 
them to participate in our mysteries." 

O&igex: (Writing of Serapis and his newly in- 
stituted worship, Origen conveys the idea 
that he is not venerable and by contrast 
says) "For the Son of God, the first-born 
of all creation, although he seemed recently 
to have become incarnate, is not by any means 
on that account recent, for the Holy Scrip- 
tures know, Him to be the most ancient of all 
the works of creation; for it was to Him 
that God said regarding the creation of 
man, — 'Let us make man in our image, after 
our likeness.' " 

Celsus: (Showing that Plato would have been 
glad to reach all men and help them if he 
could have made himself understood to all, 
Celsus quotes him| from the "Greatest Good") 
"If it appeared to me that these matters 
could be adequately explained to the multi- 
tude in writing and in oral address, what 
nobler pursuit in life could have been fol- 
lowed by me, than to commit to writing what 



CRITICISMS 89 

was to prove of such advantage to human 
beings, and to lead the nature of all men on- 
wards to the light?" 
Origen: "Let those who wish to, consider 
whether Plato was acquainted with any doc- 
trines more profound or more divine than 
those which he has left behind him, while we 
demonstrate that our prophets did know of 
greater things than any in the Scriptures, 
but which they did not commit to writing. 
Ezekiel received a roll written within and 
without, in which were contained, 'Lamenta- 
tions,' and 'Songs,' and 'Denunciations'; 
but at the command of the Logos he swal- 
lowed the book, in order that its contents 
might not be written and so made known to 
unworthy 'persons. John also is recorded 
to have seen and done a similar thing, and 
again while teaching us the difference be- 
tween what ought to be committed to writ- 
ing and what not, declares that he heard 
seven thunders instructing him on certain 
matters, and forbidding him to commit their 
words to writing. Nay, Paul even heard, 
'Unspeakable words which it is not lawful 
for a man to utter.' And it is related of 
Jesus, who was greater than all these, that 
he conversed with His disciples in private, 
and especially in their secret retreats, con- 
cerning the Gospel of God; but the words 
which He uttered have not been preserved, 



90 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

because it appeared to the evangelists that 
they could not be adequately conveyed to 
the multitude in writing or in speech. And 
if it were not tiresome to repeat the truth 
regarding these illustrious individuals, I 
would say that they saw better than Plato 
what things were to be committed to writing, 
and how this was to be done, and what was 
by no means to be written to the multitude, 
and what was to be expressed in words, and 
what was not to be so conveyed." 

It is painful to observe the weakness and the 
superstition manifested in Origen's reply. An 
apologist, of his learning, and one so greatly ven- 
erated, should have found better arguments or 
have ignored the subject entirely. 

Celsus: "The comic poets, to cause laughter in 
the theater, wrote that, 'Jupiter, after awak- 
ening from' a long sleep, dispatched Mercury, 
to his proteges, — the contentious and irasci- 
ble Athenians and Lacedaemonians' ; but do 
you not think that the Christians have made 
the Son of God more ridiculous in sending 
Him to the Jews?" 

Origen: "We stated, indeed, in what precedes, 
that it was not as if awakening from a 
lengthened slumber that God sent Jesus to 
the human race, who has now, for good 
reasons, fulfilled the economy of His incarna- 
tion, but who has always conferred benefits 



CRITICISMS 91 

upon the human race. For no noble deed has 
ever been performed amongst men, where the 
Divine Word did not visit the souls of those 
who were capable, although for a little time, 
of admitting such operations of the Divine 
Word. Moreover, the advent of Jesus, ap- 
parently to one corner of the earth, was 
founded on good reasons, since it was neces- 
sary that He who was the subject of proph- 
ecy should make His appearance among 
those who had become acquainted with the 
doctrine of one God, and who perused the 
writings of His prophets, and who had 
come to know the announcement of Christ, 
and that He should come to them at a time 
when the Word was about to be diffused 
from one corner over the whole world. . . . 
And we do not admit that a fulfillment of 
the Messianic prophecies was had, as urged 
by Josephus and Tacitus, in the elevation 
of Vespasian to the throne of Rome." 

There is no doubt that Josephus paid divine 
honors to Vespasian, and that he professed to be- 
lieve that the coming of Vespasian from Judea 
to the throne of Rome was a fulfillment of the 
prophecies, I quote at length Tacitus on the sub- 
ject to which Origen refers: "Such prodigies 
had happened, as this nation (The Jews), which 
is superstitious enough in its own way, would not 
agree to expiate by the ceremonies of the Roman 



92 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

religion, nor would they atone the gods by sacri- 
fices and vows, as these used to do on the like 
occasions. Armies were seen to fight in the sky, 
and their armour appeared! of a bright light color, 
and the temple shone with sudden flashes of fire 
out of the clouds. The doors of the temple were 
opened on a sudden, and a voice greater than 
human was heard, that the gods were retiring, 
and at the same time there was a great motion 
perceived, as if they were going out of it, which 
some esteemed to be causes of terror. The greater 
part had a firm belief that it was contained in 
the old Sacerdotal books, that at this very time 
the East would prevail, and that some that came 
out of Judea should obtain the Empire of the 
world, which obscure oracle foretold Vespasian 
and Titus ; but the generality of the common 
people, as usual, indulged their own inclinations, 
and when they had once interpreted all to for- 
bode grandeur to themselves, adversity itself could 
not persuade them to change their minds, though 
it were from falsehood to truth." 

Celsus: (Quoting at length from the Mosaic 
law and from the prophets showing that the 
laws of Moses came from God, or had His 
approval, Celsus then says) "While on the 
other hand His son, the man of Nazareth, 
promulgated laws quite opposite to these, 
declaring that no one can come to the Father 
who loves power, or riches, or glory; that 



CRITICISMS 93 

men ought not to be more careful to provide 
food than the ravens; that they were to be 
less concerned about their raiment than the 
lilies, that to him who has given them one 
blow, they should offer to receive another. 
Whether is it Moses or Jesus that teaches 
falsely? Did the Father when He sent Jesus 
forget the command which He had given to 
Moses? Or did He change His mind, con- 
demn His own laws, and send forth a messen- 
ger with counter instructions?" 
Origen : "The law and the prophets are to be 
interpreted in a two-fold manner; one in a 
literal sense and the other in a spiritual 
sense." 

There can be no doubt about it ; the teachings 
of Jesus, as we have them, are contrary to the 
laws of Moses, and this brought Jesus into con- 
flict with the Pharisees and the Chief Priests and 
the Sanhedrin, and finally sent Him to the Cross. 
However, the doctrines which Jesus taught are 
infinitely better for the race than the brutal and 
vicious laws given the Jews by Moses. 

Ceesus: (Endeavoring to prove that Christians 
serve two masters, Celsus argues from secu- 
lar affairs that) "No man can serve two 
masters at the same time, to undertake to 
do this is to be loyal to neither ; the character 
of the master is shown by the character of 
the servant, and the character of the object 



94 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

worshiped is always portrayed by the char- 
acter of the worshipers." 
Origen: (Denying these conclusions Origen 
says) "Our Socrates said, — 'Anytus and 
Melitus may kill me, but they cannot injure 
me ; for it is impossible that the better shall 
ever be injured by the worse.' And when the 
unworthy executioners of Anaxarchus were 
afflicting him he said to his tormentors, 'Beat, 
beat the shell of Anaxarchus, for himself 
you do not beat.' And as regards the pas- 
sage, — 'No man can serve two masters,' 
these words can be perfectly true only, when 
they refer to the service which we render 
to the most High through His Son, who 
leadeth us to God. And we will not serve 
God as though He stood in need of our serv- 
ice, or as though He would be made un- 
happy if we ceased to serve Him; but we do 
it because we are ourselves benefited by the 
service of God, and because we are freed from 
griefs and troubles by serving the Most High 
God through His only begotten Son, the 
Word and Wisdom." 

Celsus advises the Christians to lend their aid 
to the king in the maintenance of justice, of order ; 
to fight for him, or to fight under him, or to lead 
an army along with him. 

Origen: "We do, when occasion requires, give 
help to kings, and that, so to say, a divine 
help, 'putting on the whole armour of God.' 



CRITICISMS 95 

And this we do in obedience to the injunc- 
tion of the apostle: 'I exhort, therefore, 
that first of all, supplications, prayers, in- 
tercessions, and giving of thanks, be made 
for all men, for kings, and for all that are 
in authority' ; and the more anyone excels 
in piety, the more effective help does he 
render to kings, even more than is given by 
soldiers, who go forth to fight and slay as 
many of the enemy as they can. And to 
those enemies of our faith who require us 
to bear arms for the commonwealth, and to 
slay men, we can reply : 'Do not those who 
are priests at certain shrines, and those who 
attend on certain gods, as you account them, 
keep their hands free from blood, that they 
may with hands unstained and free from hu- 
man blood offer the appointed sacrifices to 
your gods ; and even when war is upon you, 
you never enlist the priests in the army. If 
that, then, is a laudable custom, how much 
more so, that while others are engaged in 
battle, these too should engage as the priests 
and ministers of God, keeping their hands 
pure, and wrestling in prayers to God on 
behalf of those who are fighting in a right- 
eous cause, and for the kings who reign 
righteously, that whatever is opposed to 
those who act righteously may be de- 
stroyed.' And as we by our prayers van- 
quish all demons who stir up war, and lead 
to the violation of oaths, and disturb the 



96 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

peace, we in this way are much more helpful 
to the kings than those who go into the field 
to fight for them. And we do take our part 
in public affairs, when along with righteous 
prayers we join self-denying exercises and 
meditations, which teach us to despise pleas- 
ures, and not to be led away by them. And 
none fight better for the king than we do. 
We do not indeed fight under him, although 
he require it; but we fight on his behalf, 
forming a special army — an army of piety 
— by offering our prayers to God." 

This excerpt shows that the contention of the 
emperors, to the effect that Christians could not 
be relied upon to assist the state in time of war, 
was true. It was on this account, historians tell 
us, that Diocletian began the persecution of 
Christians early in his reign. The first circum- 
stance to raise his wrath was an act of insubor- 
dination of a Christian soldier at Nicomedia named 
Maximilianus. This act was followed closely 
by a centurion named Marcellus, who, on the day 
of a public festival, threw away his belt, his arms 
and his ensigns of office, and exclaimed with a loud 
voice, — "I will obey none but Jesus Christ the 
eternal King, and I renounce forever the use of 
carnal weapons, and the service of an idolatrous 
master." These men were immediately executed, 
but desertions from the army followed frequently. 
Diocletian's reign was, however, a century later 



CRITICISMS 97 

than Origen but the attitude of the Christians 
was the same during the first three centuries. 

JULIAN 

Julian came to the throne of Rome in A. D. 
361. This was thirty-eight years after his im- 
perial uncle, Constantine the Great, had been pro- 
claimed emperor by the army in Gaul. Constan- 
tius had preceded Julian and reigned from 353 
to 361. During the reign of Constantius, Julian 
had witnessed the assassination of his own father 
and three brothers, all princes, and he knew that 
this was compassed by the eunuchs and Christian 
counselors at the court of Constantius. It was 
therefore with feelings of intense abhorrence to- 
wards the Christians that Julian came to the 
throne of the Caesars. He had been brought 
up under the care of Eusebius, bishop of Nico- 
media, and was familiar with the strife and bit- 
terness which existed between the numerous sects 
of the Christians that had kept the empire in tur- 
moil since the council of Nicaea, held in 325. 
Julian at once took steps to restore the ancient 
religions of Rome and Greece and to reopen the 
temples that had long been closed. He went to 
Ephesus — "where torches light themselves and 
statues smile" — and was initiated into the mys- 
teries of the worship of the Ephesian goddess, 
Diana, attempting to substitute Neo-Platonism, a 
philosophical paganism, for Christianity as the 
state religion. It must be said of Julian, how- 



98 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

ever, that he was humane and did not persecute 
the Christians, asserting that they were persecut- 
ing and killing themselves quite fast enough. 
Julian said: "The savage beasts are not more for- 
midable to man than the Christians are to one 
another when they are divided by creed and opin- 
ion." And at Alexandria, that hot-bed of Chris- 
tian contention and sedition, he said: "I swear 
by the great Serapis the contempt that is shown 
for all the gods fills me with grief and indigna- 
tion. There is nothing that I should see, nothing 
that I should hear, above this, than the expulsion 
of Athanasius and his creed from all Egypt." 
Julian also averred: "I hold with derision the 
Mosaic history and Christianity, and I prefer the 
Greek poets to the Hebrew prophets." He 
closes a formal address with this powerful indict- 
ment against Christianity, as he saw it and under- 
stood it: "If I could make each individual citi- 
zen richer than Midas, and every city of my em- 
pire greater than was Babylon, I would not es- 
teem myself the benefactor of mankind, unless, 
at the same time, I can reclaim my subjects from 
their impious revolt against the immortal gods." 

APHLEIUS 
Apuleius, a very polished author of the sec- 
ond century, resided at Carthage, where he must 
have been familiar with Christianity and have 
witnessed numerous executions of Christians. 
He does not mention Jesus, and only once, and 



CRITICISMS 99 

then indirectly, refers to Christianity by causing 
one of his characters in the "Golden Ass," a dis- 
reputable woman, to say that she believed in the 
doctrines of Christianity. 

The following statements are not of approved 
character, nor to be considered as criticisms ; they 
are not, however, without some interest and for 
this reason I submit them here. 

PHLEGON 

Phlegon, A. D. 120, a Greek of Asia Minor and 
a writer on the subject of marvels and prodigies, 
is said by Origen to have mentioned the occur- 
rence of an earthquake which was said to have 
taken place at the time of the crucifixion of Jesus. 
This reference is not found in any of the writings 
of Phlegon now extant. Phlegon was a collector 
of incredible stories covering a period from B. C. 
700 to A. D. 135. He had been a slave in the 
family of Hadrian and possessed more of super- 
stition than education. 

NUMENIUS 

Numenius, A. D. 160, a Pythagorean philoso- 
pher, is said by Origen to have referred to Jesus 
in his teaching before his classes, and always 
favorably. This philosopher and teacher, how- 
ever, conceived of a trinity which comprised, 
"The Supreme Deity, the Demiurge, and the 
World," and could not have accorded more to 



100 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

Jesus than that of being a good man and teach- 
ing a pure morality. 

DIONYSIUS 

Dionysius, the Areopagite, was a student in 
Heliopolis, in Egypt, at the time Jesus was cruci- 
fied at Jerusalem. Fifty years later, while living 
in Athens and a member of the Christian Church 
and community at Athens, Dionysius asserted that 
he had observed the eclipse of the sun which is 
said to have occurred on the day Jesus was cruci- 
fied, and claimed to have been so impressed at the 
time that he said to a fellow student at Heliopo- 
lis : "Either the Divinity suffers or sympathizes 
with some sufferer." I 

EUSEBIUS 

Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea, in Palestine, A. 
D. 265-340, wrote quite extensively. He re- 
cords that, in his time, there were preserved, at 
Edessa, in Mesopotamia, the copy of a letter 
which had been written to Jesus, by "Abgarus who 
was king of Edessa in the first half of the First 
century," and a letter from! Jesus in reply thereto. 
Eusebius claims that he found these letters at 
Edessa and they were in the Syriac language. 
They are to be found in Eusebius' work, "The Ec- 
clesiastical History," Book 1, Chapter 13. An 
English translation of the letters was published 
some years ago by David McKay of Philadelphia, 
from which I quote. — 



CRITICISMS 101 

"Abgarus, King of Edessa, 

"To Jesus the good Savior, who appears at 
Jerusalem; Greeting: 

"I have been informed concerning thee and thy 
cures, which are performed without the use of 
medicines and herbs. For it is reported that thou 
causest the blind to see, the lame to walk, do both 
cleanse lepers and cast out unclean spirits and 
devils, and restores t them to health who have been 
long diseased, and raisest up the dead. Which 
when I heard, I was persuaded of one of these 
two; either that thou art God himself descended 
from Heaven who doeth these things, or the Son 
of God. On this account therefore I have written 
to thee earnestly desiring that thou wouldst take 
the trouble of a journey hither, and cure a' disease 
which I am under. For I hear that the Jews ridi- 
cule thee and intend thee mischief. My city is 
indeed small but neat and large enough for us 
both. Farewell." 

"Jesus, by Ananias the footman: 
"To Abgarus the King, Greeting: 

"Thou art happy, for as much as thou hast 
believed on me, whom thou hast not seen. For it 
is written concerning me, that those who have seen 
me should not believe on me, that they who have 
not seen might believe and live. 

"As to that part of thy letter which relates to 
me giving thee a visit, I must inform thee that I 
must fulfill all the ends of my mission, and after 



102 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

that be received up again to Him who sent me. 
But after my ascension I will send one of my dis- 
ciples, who will cure thy disease and give life to 
thee and all that are with thee. Farewell." 

St. Augustine mentions an epistle ofi Jesus that 
had been written to Peter and Paul. Also he men- 
tions an epistle of Jesus which "had been pro- 
duced by the Manichees," but no quotations from 
these letters are given. 

I infer that Christian scholars and theologians 
are doubtful of the authenticity of these several 
letters or they would not have so persistently ig- 
nored them, or the mention of them, writers whom, 
on other subjects, quote extensively. 



Ill 



THE SIBYLLINE BOOKS; THE LOGOS; 
NEO-PLATONISM ; MOHAMMEDANISM 

THE SIBYLLINE BOOKS 

In the Apocalyptic literature which has come 
down to us, we find much about the "Sibylline 
Books." Latterly these seem to have been of 
Jewish origin, while, in the first instance, the 
"Oracle" was a woman named Sibyl. Sibyl must 
have had many successors, for the books cover a 
considerable period of time. The latest of these 
prophesy the coming of Jesus, the destruction of 
Jerusalem by Titus, the supremacy of Christianity 
over paganism and many related matters. All 
this was but an effort to employ the methods of 
the heathen, or Gentile oracles in the interest of 
Jewish and Christian prophecy. ■ 

The Sibyls were quoted by the Fathers of the 
Church from Justin Martyr down to Lactantius, 
and the Sibylline oracles were used in support of 
Christianity until A. D. 195, at which time, it 
had been prophesied, Rome should be ruined. In- 
asmuch as the predicted ruin did not come, the 
theologians thereafter ceased to employ the Sib}ds 
in support of Christian doctrine. 

The Apocalypse of St. John is of the same 
103 



104 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

character as the books of the Sibyls. The im- 
pression and belief was quite general with the 
Christians of the second century that the proph- 
ecy of St. John, of the approaching end 
of the world, and the second coming of Jesus, was 
to be fulfilled at the end of that century. It was 
because this prophecy was not fulfilled that the 
Greek bishops of the churches of Asia, the repre- 
sentatives of the Seven Churches, to which the 
Apocalypse is addressed, met in council at Laodi- 
cea in A. D. 360, and discredited this gospel and 
voted it out of the canon. The Latin, or Roman 
Church, however, continued the book in the canon 
and neither undertakes to explain, nor deny, the 
failure of the prophecy. 

Const antine made a homiletic address before an 
assembly of Christian bishops in which he gave 
two reasons, to his mind all sufficient, why he be- 
lieved in the "eternal truths" of Christianity; 
first, that the eighth Sibylline book, of A. D. 211, 
contained an orphic, in the Greek text, composed 
of thirty-four lines, in which an acrostic was 
formed producing this impressive sentence: 
"Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior of the World." 
Second, that the fourth book of the Eclogues, of 
Virgil, contained a prophecy of the coming and 
reign of Jesus. 

I am unable to find the orphic of Sibyl, which 
Constantine mentioned with such implicit faith 
and reverence, though I have no doubt that such 
an orphic can be found in the Sibylline writings. 



THE SIBYLLINE BOOKS 105 

Translations of the latest of those writings were 
made some centuries ago. The oldest and best 
accredited writings, or prophecies of Sibyl, were 
extant and in the temple of Apollo Patrous as 
late as A. D. 363, and at an earlier period copies 
of these books were built in the walls of the tem- 
ple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill, Rome. The 
verses were doubtless composed by some one 
in the interest of Christianity, and were a pious 
fraud. 

The prophecy contained in the fourth book of 
the Eclogues, written about B. C. 39, certainly 
does not point to Jesus. The expositors of Vir- 
gil do not interpret those beautiful verses as Con- 
stantine interpreted them. They are made by 
the poet to come from Sibyl ("Cumea's maid") 
and doubtless referred to the nuptials of Virgil's 
patron, — C. Asinius Pollio. Virgil frequently em- 
ploys the Sibylline oracles in his works. It is 
remarkable that a heathen oracle and a heathen 
poet should have been considered by Constantine 
to be prophets of the coming of Jesus and heralds 
of His divinity. Such was the state of mind of 
the great pro-Christian emperor, and he appears 
to have become a Christian because of his belief 
in these ridiculous superstitions. Let us consider 
what would have become of the Christian religion 
had not Constantine embraced it and given to it 
the protection of the Roman empire. There prob- 
ably would not have been a Nicene council, with 
its resultant creed of extreme trinitarian doc- 



106 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

trine. Nor could the Christian religion so soon, 
if at all, have become a dominating influence in 
the empire, which developed a republic within the 
empire, which finally subverted Roman institu- 
tions and succeeded in placing the Papacy on the 
throne of the Caesars. 

THE LOGOS 

This term was first used by Plato to give per- 
sonality to attributes of the Deity. Nearly four 
hundred years later, this word became the exponent 
of a certain attitude of philosophic thought touch- 
ing God] and the visible Universe. Philo of Alex- 
andria employs this word in his scheme of phi- 
losophy thus : "God is incorporiel, absolute, per- 
fection, and is apprehensible only by reason. An 
intermediate agent is affirmed, the Logos, or idea 
of ideas. This Logos is God's elder son, as the 
world is His younger son." Philo describes, or 
defines the Logos as the "Image of God," "The 
High Priest of God," "The Son of God," and 
"The Man of God." Philo's definition wavers 
between attribute and substance and is altogether 
metaphysical. This doctrine had become a sol- 
vent for all problems relating to Deity and His 
Creation and was on everybody's tongue in the 
first century of our era. Justin Martyr, one of 
the earliest of the Christian Fathers, used this 
term, — the Logos, or the Word, or the Divine 
Word, more frequently than the more specific 
term "Jesus," and he closes an address to Emperor 



THE LOGOS 107 

Antoninus in these terms: "The crucified One 
whom we worship is the Divine Word." 

The "Divine Word," or Logos, with Justin and 
the Gnostics generally, was, therefore, synony- 
mous with the personal being of Jesus. The cur- 
rent interpretation of the "Logos" of that day, 
however, meant much less than was embodied in 
the extreme trinitarian doctrines affirmed one 
hundred and fifty years later, in the Nicene creed. 
For example: Paul, bishop of Antioch, A. D. 
260, in his discussion with a sophist of Antioch 
expresses this idea of the Logos : "God is to be 
conceived as one person ; from Him, however, there 
proceeds eternally as force, a Logos, who may 
be called Son. This Logos worked in the Proph- 
ets ; at last in the highest degree and in a 
unique manner, in Jesus. Jesus is in his own na- 
ture a man, originating in time. He is from be- 
neath, but by inspiration and indwelling, the Di- 
vine Logos worked on Him from above." We 
shall do well to bear this definition in mind. Many 
books have been written on this subject. We get 
the clearest understanding of it in the ante-Ni- 
cene theology. The Stoics affirmed that Reason 
is the ruling principle in the world, that Reason 
is an attribute of God, and they called this in- 
fluence with men the "Logos." The early theolo- 
gians, remembering the creative word of God as 
expressed in the Book of Genesis, and associat- 
ing it with creative thought, called "The Word," 
the Logos. We find a phase of this doctrine in 



108 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

the prologue of John's Gospel, wherein is ex- 
pressed the idea of "The Word" being "made 
flesh" and more explicitly "the Word of God made 
incarnate." This doctrine, then, enabled the 
Greek scholars and the Greek theologians of the 
first and second centuries to get over the diffi- 
culty embodied in the idea of the "Immaculate 
Conception" of Jesus. 

NEO-PLATONISM! 

This system of philosophical and religious 
thought was anticipated by Philo, a Hellenic Jew 
of Alexandria, who sought to harmonize the con- 
ceptions of Plato, which had agitated and charmed 
the intellectual world for three and a half cen- 
turies, with Jewish conceptions of the "scheme 
of things," as set forth by Jewish scholars from 
Moses down to his day. In this great work 
Philo contributed much, which soon after became 
fundamental, in the new school of Neo-Platonism. 

That a doctrine should be developed by an 
Alexandrian Jew, which unites the conceptions 
of Moses with those of Plato, is one! of the marvels 
of Egyptian speculation and scholarship. This 
fact is observed and tersely and charmingly nar- 
rated by Winwood Reade in his work — The 
Martyrdom of Man. Let us read a paragraph 
on this subject from this admirable book. — 
"There was a town named Heliopolis ; it had a 
college garden, and a willow hanging over the 
Fountain of the Sun; and there the Professors 



NEO-PLATONISM 109 

lectured and discoursed on the Triune God, and 
the creation of the world, and the Serpent Evil, 
and the Tree of Life; and on chaos and darkness; 
and the shining stars ; and there the stone quad- 
rant was pointed to the heavens ; and there the 
laboratory furnace glowed. And in that College 
two foreign students were received, and went 
forth learned in its lore. The first created a 
nation in the Egyptian style; the second created 
a system of ideas ; and, strange to say, on Egyp- 
tian soil the two were reunited; the philosophy of 
Moses was joined in Alexandria to the philosophy 
of Plato, not only by the Jews, but also by the 
Christians ; not only in Philo Judasus, but also in 
the Gospel of St. John." 

Philo had the advantage of Plato in having at 
his side the Jehovah of the Jews as a medium 
through which to give potency to ideas. Plato 
had searched everywhere in the visible world and 
in the kingdom of his own mind for an embodied 
God, — a God of form, personality and attributes 
— but in vain. Philo then began where Plato 
had made an end and affirmed with Moses: "In 
the beginning Jehovah created the Heavens and 
the Earth," and then proceeded to explain 
how this was done ; maintaining that Jehovah 
first had the Idea of a world and that the 
potency of a Divine Idea was such that it clothed 
itself in substance and form. And so with re- 
gard to the creation of the Flora and Fauna of 
the world; that Jehovah had the idea of a plant, 



110 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

and the species of a plant, and that the power 
contained in this idea took visible form in the 
plant. And that the species of animals, includ- 
ing man, were so many incarnations of the 
thoughts of Jehovah, "so many material repre- 
sentations of Divine Ideas." 

We can see at once that this doctrine is the 
very opposite of that held by modern thought — 
that it is opposed to the science of evolution. 

Philo was a man of liberal learning and an 
enthusiastic worker. He was forty years old 
when Jesus was crucified, but Christianity had 
not, apparently, risen to public notice in his day. 
The teachings of Philo and the ethical precepts 
of Plato and of Aristotle formed the moral struc- 
ture of Neo-Platonism. In addition to this there 
was a spiritual conception which was developed 
along lines of mysticism and asceticism. Its as- 
sumptions were; that there is a Primeval Being, 
an Ideal World, a Soul, and a Phenomenal 
World. And it taught that, "the soul hi its long- 
ings reaches out and up beyond all sensible 
things, even beyond the world of ideas," and that 
it follows,, that, "the highest being must be super- 
rational." This was a religious system without 
rewards and punishments. It presupposes a 
soul, "with longings to reach up and beyond 
sensible things" ; and this longing will make men 
good. It teaches moral precepts which will 
supplement the "longing of the soul to reach up 
and beyond sensible things," and it proclaims 



NEO-PLATONISM 111 

an asceticism which induces thought and desire 
for an ultimate union with the "Primeval 
Being." 

The philosophy of Plato and Aristotle had no 
religious significance. Their ethics were for here 
and now. Neo-Platonism, however, gave a re- 
ligious significance to morals and taught that 
the effect of morals was both here and hereafter. 
It had nothing to do however with faith. It had 
no sacrifice and no priesthood. It did not lean 
on philosophy; on the contrary, philosophy gives 
way to supernaturalism and to a bold idealism. 
It affirms that beyond sense-perception and be- 
yond rational cognition, is a fountain of life 
and energy and that this may be felt in a sub- 
jective state. 

Emperor Julian in A. D. 361, undertook to 
adopt and establish Neo-Platonism in place of 
Christianity, which had been made the state re- 
ligion, by his uncle, Constantine the Great; but 
the masses would not have it. It did not suffi- 
ciently excite the imagination nor stimulate and 
feed their superstitions ; to them it lacked the 
personality of a crucified Jesus ; it lacked a sacri- 
fice and the warmth of flesh and blood, which 
characterized Christianity and which appealed 
mightily to a barbarous people. Many of the 
Fathers of the Church, especially the renowned 
Origen and later Saint Augustine, were Neo- 
Platonists, and Christian theology was, in de- 
gree, shaped and molded by the doctrines of this 



112 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

school of thought at Alexandria. It seems that 
religions, as well as creatures in the physical 
world, are subject to the law of evolution. When 
the brilliant and aggressive Porphyry became a 
leader in the school of Neo-Platonism, the lines 
which had long run parallel between Christianity 
and Neo-Platonism became divergent. Porphyry 
made no criticisms of Jesus, nor of what he be- 
lieved to be the teachings of Jesus, nor of 
Nazarene Christianity, but he unsparingly con- 
demned the Christian writings and claimed that 
they were the work of ignorant, if not designing 
men. Porphyry wrote a criticism of the Chris- 
tian religion A. D. 270, and undertook to show 
what he considered was the teaching of Jesus and 
what he considered "myths." His works were 
gathered together and destroyed by Theodosius 
II, A. D. 448, in the interest of Christianity, and 
we do not now know what his criticisms were. In 
speaking of the theologian, Origen, Porphyry 
says : "His outer life was that of a Christian but 
his views of things and of God were those of the 
Greeks whose conceptions he overlaid with foreign 
myths." Origen was one of the greatest 
theologians of his day, a convert from Neo- 
Platonism. 

Neo-Platonism had largely absorbed the schools 
of philosophy, had broken down the system of 
nature-worship, and had thus opened the door to 
Christianity. There came about much jealousy, 
especially in the centers of learning and at 
Alexandria. Christianity had drawn largely 



MOHAMMEDANISM 113 

from Neo-Platonism and the schools were no 
longer as popular and well filled with students 
as in earlier years. Since Emperor Constantine 
had made Christianity the state religion, it was 
bearing down all opposition. Still, one gifted 
teacher of Neo-Platonism remained at Alexandria ; 
that teacher was Hypatia. Her school was 
popular and her influence great. Christianity 
was jealous of her and her work. Bishop Cyril, 
of the church at Alexandria, caused Hypatia to 
be apprehended and brutally assassinated in the 
Christian church, — -the cassarium. This oc- 
currence broke up the remaining school and the 
doctrines of Neo-Platonism were no longer 
taught in Alexandria, nor in lower Egypt, A 
school was then established in Athens, which was 
later suppressed by Justinian, at the behest of 
Christian bishops. 

We will do well to remember that it was an 
anti-Christian mob at Jerusalem, incited by Priest 
and Scribe, that dragged Stephen forth from the 
Sanhedrin and stoned him to his death; and that 
it was a pro-Christian mob at Alexandria, incited 
by a Christian bishop, that dragged Hypatia 
from her schoolroom to the caesarium and with 
unspeakable insults consigned her to the flames. 

The Koran. Mohammedanism was taken from 

Judaism and Christianity. All great religions 

were born, or revealed, in the seclusion of the 

wilderness. 

Moses retired to the fastness of Sinai and there 



114 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

for forty days "talked with God," and from Him 
received the law which saith: "thou shalt not!" 
which law has governed the Jews for three thou- 
sand five hundred years. 

The prophets, from their seclusion came forth 
from age to age and prophesied : "thus saith the 
lord." 

John the Baptist came out of the wilderness unto 
the people, crying : "repent ! repent !" 
Jesus, before beginning his ministry, retired to 
the wilderness and after fasting forty days 
showed himself to the people and preached that 
memorable "Sermon on the Mount." 
Paul retired to the wilderness of Arabia, after 
his conversion and baptism, at Damascus, and 
upon his return began to preach the new doctrine 
of "salvation by faith." 

Mohammed, had a vision, while in retirement on 
[Mount Hira, near Mecca. The angel Gabriel 
appeared to him and bade him write; and thus 
the Koran was given to Mohammed, a new re- 
ligion born, with a new prophet to expound it. 

It appears that Mohammed had been a camel 
driver and that in his travels he had frequently 
stopped at the monastery of St. Catharine, on 
Mount Sinai, and had learned of the Jewish 
Scriptures and had become familiar with the Arian 
views of Christianity from the monks of that 
monastery. He had also visited the Nestorian 
monastery at Bozrah in Syria in A. D. 581, when 



MOHAMMEDANISM 115 

but twelve years of age, and had been taught by 
the monks of Bozrah their views of Christianity. 
From Arian and Nestorian Christianity, Moham- 
med received his early prejudice against the trini- 
tarian doctrines of Catholic Christianity. We 
are not surprised, therefore, to find the revela- 
tions of Gabriel to Mohammed to be, largely, a 
rearrangement of the Old Testament scriptures, 
with a decided monotheistic bias ; and to find 
Christianity robbed of its trinitarian doctrines. 

The God of Mohammed is the God of the Jews. 
Prayer was offered at first by the devotee with his 
face towards Jerusalem, later, towards Mecca. 
The precepts of this religion are, first : confession 
of the Unity of God. Second: stated prayer 
shall be made. Third: almsgiving is enjoined. 
Fourth: fasts and festivals shall be observed. 
Fifth: the Jewish ceremonials, purification and 
circumcision are enjoined. I would not offer an 
explanation of the doctrines of Mohammedanism, 
in this inquiry, but for the fact that more than 
175,000,000 people believe in the inspiration and 
truth of the Koran ; and for the further fact that 
Mohammedanism is a sister religion to Chris- 
tianity. For the God of the Jews is also the 
God of the Mohammedans as well as the God of 
the Christians and therefore we find the kinship 
of these religions in their common God. It is a 
sound proposition in logic, that "things which are 
equal to the same thing are equal to each other." 

The "Lord's Prayer" of the Moslems follows: 



116 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

"Praise be to God, the Lord of all Creatures. 
The most merciful, the! King of the Day of Judg- 
ment. Thee do we worship, and of Thee do we 
beg assistance. Direct us in the right way, in 
the way of those to whom Thou hast been gracious, 
not of those against whom Thou art incensed 
nor of those who go astray. O God 

bestow thy salutation of peace upon Mohammed 
and the race of Mohammed, as Thou didst upon 
Ibraham and the race of Ibraham, and bless 
Mohammed and the race of Mohammed, as Thou 
didst bless Ibraham and the race of Ibraham." 

The Mohammedans believe in Heaven, in Hell, 
in the Resurrection, in Predestination and in 
Fasts and Prayer. Prayer must be offered five 
times daily. They deny the miraculous birth of 
Jesus and deny that he rose from the dead. In 
the first part of the Koran the sentiments ex- 
pressed in prayer are elevating and compare 
fairly well with the Psalms of David. But after 
the Mohammedans had taken up the cimiter and 
battle ax and gone forth to conquer, the tone of 
the Koran changes ; for the Koran was not writ- 
ten, or revealed, all at one time. Later it be- 
came a work of protest largely against the 
belief of the "Infidels." Various quotations from 
the Koran will disclose much of doctrine. — 

"Whoever shall give a companion unto God, 
God shall exclude him from paradise and his 
habitation shall be hell-fire." 



MOHAMMEDANISM 117 

"Christ, the Son of Mary, is no more than an 
apostle, other apostles have preceded him and his 
mother was a woman of veracity; they both ate 
food." 

"They who devour usury shall not rise from 
the dead." 

"If ye take vengeance on any, take a vengeance 
proportionable to the wrong done you." 

"Moreover ye and that which ye worship shall 
not seduce any concerning God, except him who 
is destined to be burnt in hell." 

Mohammed's description of heaven is that 
of a royal harem. His description of hell is 
much like a chamber of horrors or a charnel 
house. 

I have nothing to say in defense of Mo- 
hammedanism but we may remember that while 
mediaeval Europe was groping through the dark- 
ness of superstition; while the Church was per- 
secuting Galileo, Copernicus, Kepler and Bruno 
and all others who would investigate and think 
for themselves ; the arts and the schools of math- 
ematics were flourishing in Arabia. That form 
of analyses which we know as algebra was devised 
and developed in Arabia. The art of making 
paper was discovered by Arabians. The most 
important discovery in the realm of physical 
science was made by those early Mohammedan 
scholars, namely: the sphericity of the earth. A 
most interesting phenomenon had been observed 
by them; the tops of objects on the deserts and 



118 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

plains at a distance could only be seen, the bases 
were below the line of vision. Only the sails on 
boats far out at sea were visible. The body of 
the boats, at the water line, could not be seen. 
These phenomena caused certain Arabian scholars 
to make careful observations with instruments on 
the plains and sea shores of Arabia. It was thus 
ascertained that the surface line when extended 
over a considerable distance, deflected sensibly 
downward from a horizontal line. This gave 
them the arc and by more extended measurements 
they found the degree of deflection, or curvature 
of the arc. With these data they dropped their 
instruments and had recourse to their mathemat- 
ics ; they knew that a horizontal line was capable 
of indefinite extension, but were amazed, when ex- 
tending the arc with a given degree of curvature, 
to find that the line came around to them and 
formed the great circle and this circle was the 
line denoting the circumference of the earth. It 
was then easy to determine the radius. And so 
it thus became known to the Mohammedan Arabs, 
that the world was round, seven hundred years 
before Columbus demonstrated it by sailing west- 
ward from Palos. 7 

The Mohammedans have had their synods and 
councils ; these have interpreted the Koran in 

7 Two earlier attempts were made by Greek scholars to 
determine the form of the earth, but without success. The 
Pythagoreans had observed the shadow of the earth on the 
moon and had affirmed that the earth is a planet and its 
form round. 



MOHAMMEDANISM 119 

much the same fashion that the early Christian 
Church established its creed. There is a Moslem 
party of dissent from the orthodox dogma and 
this party holds views similar to those of the 
Greek philosophers, especially Aristotle and the 
scholars of Alexandria which so mightily in- 
fluenced Christian thought in the first and second 
centuries. Foremost among the Arabian phi- 
losophers who were expounders of the philosophy 
of Aristotle and who may be called "Peripatetics" 
were Averroes and Al-Gazzali. While Moham- 
medanism is intolerant to the outer world it is 
quite tolerant within. No systematic persecu- 
tion, no Torquemada and Inquisition ever had 
footing in Mohammedan countries. The "In- 
fidelity" of the learned body of dissidents is found 
expressed in "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam": 

Some for the glories of this world; and some 
Sigh for the Prophet's Paradise to come; 
Ah, take the cash, and let the credit go, 
Nor heed the rumble of a distant drum. 

Myself when young did eagerly frequent 
Doctor and saint, and heard great argument 
About it and about; but ever more 
Came out by the same door wherein I went. 

Oh threats of Hell and hopes of Paradise! 
One thing at least is certain, this life flies; 
One thing is certain and the rest is lies, 
The flower that once has bloomed forever dies. 



120 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

There is but little proselyting done by preach- 
ing; Mohammed made converts by the sword. 
The Koran does not disclose the manner of 
evangelizing, if indeed any such effort is made 
at all. From another source I cull a sermon 
which savors of the modern Christian Evangel- 
ist, — from the Mohammedan Ben-al-Hetif. . . 

"Ye miserable earth worms called men, what 
have you resembling the glory of the Supreme Be- 
ing? How long, ye two legged animals without 
feathers, will you make God after your own 
image ? Humble yourselves in the dust ; adore and 
be silent." And the people cried out: "Glory to 
God, Ben-al-Hetif has said well." 

Those who inveigh so strenuously against the 
alleged bad faith of the Moslem, must remember 
that there are always two sides to a question, 
especially when it is a religious question. Let 
us read a page from history.* 

"In the year A. D. 1444, after the sword had 
been flashing over the Balkans, and through 
Greece and Asia Minor and along the Bosphorus 
and the Danube, it was agreed that it should be 
sheathed and have an absolute rest for ten years. 
The Hungarians, through their leaders, among 
whom their grand champion, Hunyades, was 
prominent, gave the sanction of soldierly honor 
to this truce. Cardinal Julian also confirmed it, 

* Diversions of a Diplomat in Turkey, by S. S. Cox. 



MOHAMMEDANISM 121 

by the rites of the religion of which he was an 
exalted representative. It was signalized by oath 
upon the Gospels — the most sacred oath possible 
to a Christian. On the part of the Turks, the 
Sultan Amurath, in the presence of his civil and 
ecclesiastical servants, swore to the pact upon the 
Koran. This peace was strictly observed by the 
Turks. How was it observed by the Christians? 
As they never intended to keep it, they broke it. 
Its breach was made on the plea that there was 
no faith to be kept with the Infidel. In disregard 
of its sanctity, the Christian Powers move upon 
the East. It seems as if the Ottoman would be 
swept out of Europe. But what is the result? 
The Moslem starts the old war-cry. He has the 
morale of the issue. In every mosque there are 
solemn appeals to Allah. The Sultan leads the 
hosts of the Faithful against the invaders at 
Varna ; and at the head of the Janizaries, on a 
truce and in a field between the two armies, he 
reads aloud the violated treaty. It is held aloft 
upon a lance-head within sight of the Christian 
armies, and with a thunderous voice the Sultan 
utters this most singular invocation: 'O Thou in- 
sulted Jesu! avenge the wrong done unto Thy 
good name, and show Thy power upon Thy per- 
jured people.' 

"It is not necessary to say upon whose banner 
victory alights. The perjured are routed." 



IV 

THE SCHOOLS OF GREECE 

THE PYTHAGOREANS 

It is well to consider what course our civiliza- 
tion would probably have taken if Christianity 
had not developed into an important system of 
ethics and religion. We would still have been the 
inheritors of Roman law and of the Roman and 
Grecian civilization. The schools of Greek 
philosophy and ethics would doubtless have 
evolved all that we now know, and, probably, 
more, for if these schools had not been interrupted 
by Christian interdiction for upwards of ten 
centuries our civilization, in so far as it has been 
influenced by philosophy, investigation and in- 
terpretation, would have been far in advance of 
its present knowledge and achievements. Let us 
examine this subject somewhat in detail. 

The Phythagoreans, B. C. 500, the oldest of 
the Greek schools, aimed at the moral education, 
and purification of the life of the individual 
citizen, believing that if the units were character- 
ized by morality and intelligence, the state would 
likewise be so characterized and thus the in- 
dividual citizen and the state attain to the 

"greatest good." Certainly our statesmen, under 

122 



THE SCHOOLS OF GiREE.CE 123 

a Christian civilization, have no such high ideals. 
Then, let us remember that this school was the 
first to affirm, and in a measure to demonstrate 
the heliocentric theory of our solar system. 
This theory necessarily changed our flat and sta- 
tionary earth to a planet, set it in motion and 
gave to it the form of a spheroid. This concep- 
tion was fully demonstrated to be true, in the 
fifteenth century, by Copernicus and Galileo, 
though bitterly opposed by Christianity, for 
Christianity had, from its youth adopted the 
Ptolemaic system, or view, of a flat earth, with 
the sun and moon revolving around it, all for 
the benefit, wonder and enjoyment of man. We 
may affirm that Christianity retarded the growth 
of our knowledge of the universe, as shown by its 
opposition to the science of astronomy, for fifteen 
centuries, and allowed generation after genera- 
tion to die in total ignorance of the sublime truths 
of this science and their implications. 

This school was renowned for its advanced con- 
ceptions and studies in mathematics, in geometry 
and in physics ; all those who saw beauty in form 
and line, and could discern rhythm in motion, 
naturally attached themselves to this cult. In 
dietetics, it was vegetarian; its adherents could 
not think of eating flesh. The students drank 
no wine, and wore only linen clothing. Silence 
was enjoined on those students who could not ex- 
press themselves in speech clearly, briefly and to 
the point ; all such were taught reflection and self- 



124 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

examination until they could co-ordinate speech 
with sound thinking. This method eliminated all 
vain and frivolous conversation. The course of 
study and discipline comprised a period of five 
years. Many of the philosophers of Greece were 
graduated from the Pythagorean schools, and it 
is said that the bonds of fellowship which held the 
disciples of Pythagoras together were so strong 
that should a member become estranged or 
apostatize, a cenotaph was invariably raised to 
his name, thus proclaiming him dead. What rich 
fruit might the evolution and development of 
such conceptions have brought to the race, during 
the past nineteen centuries, the most of which 
was an age of darkness, had it not been for the 
interruption, or we may say, the intrusion, of the 
Christian religion? 

THE SOPHISTS 

Little that can be said of this school, as the 
Sophists did not develop, or hold to, a scheme of 
morals, or religion. They had become a well 
defined body in Greece, in the time of Socrates ; 
it was they who brought the formal charge 
against him and urged it before the jury which 
gave the unjust judgment of death. This body 
of public pleaders held a pre-eminent place in 
Greece for about one hundred years, when Soph- 
istry began to give way to philosophy and to 
more exaclJ and consistent methods of thought and 
practice. 



THE SCHOOLS OF GREECE 125 

Sophistry as a science was applied to culture, 
to rhetoric, to politics and to disputation. It 
appears to have found its widest field and great- 
est activity in formal disputation. In argument 
it had but one maxim, — "the end justifies the 
means." It esteemed style and expression above 
matter and facts ; it sought effect rather than 
accuracy and regarded persuasion above proof. 
It prostituted logic, sacrificed truth, ignored 
honesty — all, that it might attain its end and 
the emoluments which unscrupulous success in 
politics and in other fields of activity might 
bring. Socrates sacrificed everything that de- 
terred him from apprehending truth; his con- 
temporary Sophists put aside everything that did 
not contribute to their distinction and fill their 
purses. 

The Sophists were well established in Athens 
when Plato founded his Academy there, and we 
may affirm with confidence that Plato and his 
philosophy were a living and energetic protest 
against them and their intellectual methods of 
disingenuousness. Sophistry, however, had given 
way to philosophy long before Christianity had 
become a power in the Roman empire and we 
can not ascribe to the new cult the honor of over- 
coming this system, which had in it nothing of 
merit aside from its educational effect in dexterity 
of dialectic. 

PLATO 

I will not attempt to set out the doctrines and 



126 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

philosophy of Plato, if indeed I were able to do 
so. Plato traveled over every road of inquiry 
which the human mind, up to his day, was at 
all acquainted with, setting- interrogation points 
along the way of his research and inquiry, as the 
Romans, later, set up milestones along the road 
from the Aurelian gate of the city to the utmost 
bounds of Gaul. 

It was from the almost unlimited investiga- 
tions and questionings of Plato that, later, many 
of the schools of Greece appropriated their char- 
acteristic doctrines; and so we shall find much of 
Plato in the concepts and precepts of the several 
schools of Greece. I have set out elsewhere the 
doctrines of the school of "Neo-Platonism," as 
far as these relate to morals and religion. We 
should bear in mind, however, as we proceed with 
our inquiry, that the great schools of philosophy, 
and especially of ethics, of Greece were finally 
drawn into the conflict and contest which arose 
between Christianity and Neo-Platonism and that 
they were largely absorbed by these rival sys- 
tems, not however without a desperate and pro- 
longed struggle. 

THE CYNICS 

This school arose immediately after the death 
of Socrates. It came from a social and educa- 
tional point of view, as a protest against the 
state of society in Greece in the fourth century, 
B. C. It was an active and influential force in 



THE SCHOOLS OF GREECE 127 

the Greek states for about one century, when it 
lost many of its ideals and followers to Stoicism. 
This school held to no religious views, but made 
many claims for plain living. It taught and 
emphasized a mode of life and a mode of dress. 
Realism was their philosophy as opposed to 
idealism; this arrayed the Cynics against Plato 
and his school. Diogenes was an early disciple 
of this school and did much to give it character 
in his day. 

Crates was an enthusiastic Cynic; he was rich, 
but when he joined this school, he put all his 
property in the hands of trustees with instruc- 
tions to give it to his sons at their majority, 
"if they become ordinary fools, but if they should 
become philosophers they will not want it and in 
that event give it all to the poor." In the de- 
bates of the Cynics the problem as to what are 
the bare necessities of man appears to be ever 
uppermost ; "What does his nature require ?" 
When these facts were well understood among 
them, they made certain precepts to govern and 
fortify themselves against the extravagance and 
luxury and conventions of contemporaneous 
society. "We have only to reduce our wants in 
order to have plenty." This is a truly philosoph- 
ical statement, full of truth, and a complete sys- 
tem of political and domestic economy might be 
built upon it. 

The Cynics stood together with cold indiffer- 
ence to the severe criticisms of society and were 



128 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

ever insistent in proclaiming their own virtues. 
Theagenes, a Cynic of the first century A. D., 
closed a remarkable panegyric on the life of a 
fellow Cynic, Peregrin, on the day before 
Peregrin immolated himself on a burning pyre 
at the Olympian games. The Cynic closes his 
panegyric in this manner: "Peregrin, Peregrin 
vain-glorious! Who dares name the word? 
Earth, Sun, Seas, Rivers, God of our Fathers, 
Heracles ! Was it for this that he suffered bond- 
age in Syria? Was it for this that he forgave 
his country a debt of a million odd? Was it for 
this that he was cast out of Rome? He whose 
brilliance exceeds the Sun, fit rival of the Lord 
of Olympus ; 'tis his good will to depart from life 
by fire, and they call it vain-glorious? What 
other end had Heracles? . . . The world 
has seen but two works of surpassing excellence, — 
The Olympian Zeus, and Peregrin. The one we 
owe to the creative genius of Phidias, the other 
is nature's handiwork. And now the god-like 
statue departs from among mankind; borne upon 
wings of fire; he seeks the heavens and leaves us 
desolate !" 

The Cynics had one real virtue, they could not 
be bought; they esteemed their doctrines above 
money. The command of Jesus to the rich young 
man, to sell his possessions and give all to the 
poor, had its parallel with the Cynics, three cen- 
turies before Jesus. 

Seneca wrote of the Cynic, Demetrus, a con- 



THE SCHOOLS OF GREECE 129 

temporary, in the reign of Nero : "Nature brought 
him forth to show mankind how an exalted genius 
may live uncorrupted by the vice of the world." 
By the second century, A. D., Cynicism had 
become virile and influential asceticism, was 
largely absorbed by Neo-Platonism and a part of 
it found expression and habitation in Christian 
monasticism. In the end it appears to have 
been swallowed up along with Platonism in this 
phase of Christianity. On the whole, Cynicism 
never wrought a permanent good and the world 
lost nothing when this school of thought and con- 
duct ceased to exert an independent influence. 

THE STOICS, B. C. 304 

The Stoics established their schools through- 
out Greece and in the Greek cities; that had grown 
up in the countries of Asia, which had been sub- 
dued by Alexander the great. As Greek culture 
and Greek civilization had followed the army of 
Alexander into the remote and mysterious East, 
even to the shore of the Indus, so had the schools 
of the Stoics penetrated and spread over all of 
Judea, Persia, Arabia and Egypt, and, later, 
when the fragments of the Macedonian empire 
fell into the lap of Rome, the fortunes of these 
schools came with the empire, and Rome herself 
became their patron. 

This school was developed by Zeno, who bor- 
rowed much from Plato and from the Cynics. 
The trinity worshiped by the Stoics was Physics, 



130 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

Logic and Ethics. Ethics was the end of all 
useful knowledge, that is, knowledge that can be 
realized in virtue. We may gain quickly an un- 
derstanding of Stoicism by considering a propo- 
sition of Plato in the "Sophist." A group of 
students hold that all things are "corporeal." 
A stranger appears and seeks to prove to them 
the existence of some things "incorporeal" and 
proceeds to question them in this manner: 

Question: Do you admit of the existence of an 
animate body? 

Answer: Yes. 

Question: Is soul then something existent? 

Answer: Yes. 

Question: And the qualities of soul, as Justice 
and Wisdom, are they visible and tangible? 

Answer: No. 

Question: Do they then exist? 

Now the Stoics met this dilemma with the as- 
sertion that soul, and the qualities of soul, as 
Justice and Wisdom, do truly exist, but only as 
attributes of "body" and are therefore "cor- 
poreal." Now to affirm that Force, and Form, 
and Motion are but qualities of matter is a cor- 
relative proposition ; hence we see that modern 
materialism has its foundation in the affirmations, 
if not in the pantheism, of the Stoics. We are 
now led to see the importance of the first essential 
study in the curriculum of the Stoic school, which 
was Physics. That we may be impressed by, and 



THE SCHOOLS OF GREECE 131 

have a clear understanding of the doctrine of the 
Stoics in the foregoing proposition, we have only 
to consider its opposite doctrine, as found in the 
assumptions of Plato in his metaphysical specula- 
tions ; that soul, and the attributes of soul, such 
as Justice and Wisdom, exist independently of 
"body" and aside from it, and that body and 
form are but incidental and visible expressions 
of soul. The proposition of the Stoics, when ap- 
plied to the Cosmos, becomes a chief assumption 
of Physics. The proposition of Plato is an im- 
portant postulate of Metaphysics. 

Under the term "Logic" were included studies 
in rhetoric, dialectics and grammar. Many of 
the terms now used by grammarians were coined 
and handed down to us by the Stoics. This 
school became proficient in the use of analysis 
and employed this method with great exactitude 
and effect in arriving at conclusions ; but the end 
of all studies was to be realized in ethics. "We 
should not act on impulse or emotion. We should 
act on reason." This reason is the "Logos," 
which later became a famous doctrine of Philo 
and the early Christians. It is reason alone 
which produces a life of self-consistency and har- 
mony. The Cynics expressed the same opinion, 
in a more abrupt manner, in their familiar 
aphorism : "Man needs either reason or a halter." 
Reason and nature are at one; therefore a har- 
monious life is one in harmony with nature. "If 
our souls are hurried into an inflamed and dis- 



132 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

orderly condition, erroneous judgments and false 
opinions follow." Evils and vices are settled dis- 
positions, contrary to right reason and proceed 
from ignorance. 

The Stoics were not opposed to nature-wor- 
ship, as the idealism which such worship de- 
veloped was esteemed to be helpful. They were 
afflicted, somewhat, by the superstitions of their 
age and environment. "Omens and portents," 
they admitted, "as the natural symptoms of cer- 
tain occurrences." Centuries later, Scott ex- 
pressed the idea better, when he wrote: "Coming 
events cast their shadows before." Formal wor- 
ship was not enjoined. Emperor Aurelius, who 
was a Stoic, said: "He who fears death either 
fears the loss of sensation, or a different kind 
of sensation. But if thou shalt have no sensa- 
tion, neither wilt thou feel any harm ; and if thou 
shalt acquire another kind of sensation, thou wilt 
be a different kind of living being and thou wilt 
not cease to live. However do not forget that 
we live here and now. Make sure that those to 
whom thou come nearest be the happier by thy 
presence." The "Lord's Prayer of the Stoics" 
follows : 

"Most glorious of immortals, O Zeus of many 
names, almighty and everlasting, Sovereign of 
Nature, directing all in accordance with law, thee 
it is fitting that all mortals should address. 
Thee all this universe, as it rolls circling round 
the earth (?), obeys wheresoever thou dost guide, 



THE SCHOOLS OF GREECE 133 

and gladly owns thy sway. Such a minister thou 
holdest in thy invincible hands, the two edged, 
fiery, ever-living thunderbolt, under whose stroke 
all nature shudders. No work upon earth is 
wrought apart from thee, Lord, nor through the 
divine ethereal sphere, nor upon the sea; save 
whatsoever wicked men do in their own 1 foolishness. 
Nay, thou knowest how to make even the rough 
smooth, and to bring order out of disorder; and 
things not friendly are friendly in thy sight. 
For so hast thou fitted all things together, the 
good with the evil, that there might be one eternal 
law over all. Deliver men from fell ignorance. 
Banish it, Father, from their soul, and grant them 
to obtain wisdom, whereon relying, thou rulest all 
things with justice." 

The ethics, then, of the Stoics comprised and 
combined right living and right acting. The end 
sought was not future reward, for they did not be- 
lieve in the continuity of conscious life. They 
believed, however, that if there is in us a spiritual 
faculty, which survives the dissolution of the 
body, it will return to the fountain of spirit life, 
from which it had been drawn and appropriated. 
Besides, to do right for the hope of reward was, 
to the Stoic mind, a selfish and a mean motive, 
partaking of the nature of expediency. Nor did 
their ethics enjoin right living and right acting, 
because such a course would please God, for this 
was, to the Stoics, too remote a contingency ; they 
sought and used a present motive for determining 



134 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

the quality of daily actions. They enjoined 
right living and right acting, because such a 
course was right in itself, for "morality is its own 
excuse for being." 

Such motives developed the stern, cold and in- 
flexible character of the Stoic which, under cer- 
tain conditions, led him to prefer to cease to be 
rather than to violate the principles of his man- 
hood. Many of the austere Romans of the last 
two centuries of the republic were Stoics. These 
men were able to rule the world and, at the same 
time, govern their individual selves. A century 
later, under the emperors, the nobility of Rome, 
who were the flower and fruitage of six centuries 
of character building, under a liberal, energetic 
and progressive government, were Stoics. These 
men would not bend obsequiously to the vicious 
and corrupt princes, — the insufferable Domitians 
and Neros of that century. Here was a genera- 
tion of truly noble men, whose greatness of soul 
was born of high ideals and who were not crea- 
tures of chance, or of fortuitous circumstances. 
Members of this class preferred to open their 
veins, and let their blood flow, rather than dis- 
honor their country, the memory of their ances- 
tors, or degrade themselves. This attitude led 
to the adoption of this aphorism: "I possess a 
treasure which not all the world can rob me of — 
no one can deprive me of death." 

The Stoics valued their ideals above life, and 
their manhood above expediency. 



THE SCHOOLS OF GREECE 135 

Does our Christian civilization to-day hold up 
better ideals for the citizen, than those of the 
Stoic school, which it supplanted? 

THE EPICUREANS 

In 300 B. C. there was at Melite, a suburb of 
Athens, a garden of exquisite beauty, which sur- 
rounded a modest dwelling. Here, a large num- 
ber of studious men and women met daily to con- 
sider and discuss the problems of life. This 
beautiful garden had been dedicated by Epicurus 
to the school for the study of ethical questions 
and was open to his disciples at all hours of the 
day. Never was knowledge pursued in more 
lovely surroundings ; it was an enchantment of 
flowers, of blooming shrubs and of fragrant 
groves. If the beauty of a picture is enhanced 
by an appropriate and pleasing background, so 
was this system of ethics made impressive and 
attractive by the loveliness of its early environ- 
ment. | 

Epicureanism was a reaction from the phi- 
losophy of Plato and Aristo'tle ; a relaxation from 
the exalted conceptions and postulates of Platon- 
ism and Peripateticism. It denied the dualism 
between mind and matter, a dualism for which 
Plato had contended, and in his system had de- 
veloped with most potent reasoning and splendid 
logic. It was a system without ideals. It took 
human nature as it found it and accepted its 
promptings as authoritative. It put feelings 



136 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

above reason and tested conceptions and proposi- 
tions by appeal to sensation. Its familiar maxim 
was: "Whatever we effectively feel in conscious- 
ness is real." Thus idealism was shut out. 
Mind, spirit, or soul, as a self-existent entity was 
denied: "All that exists is corporeal — the intan- 
gible is non-existent." A little earlier there had 
been Pyrrho and his disciples doubting the testi- 
mony of the senses, denying utterly any criterion 
of truth. All is mere appearance, all is relative. 
How do we know that the object is in fact what, 
to our senses, it appears to be? Things appear 
differently to different individuals. Had we more 
than five senses, the object would have more than 
five qualities, more than five aspects. Who can 
tell that our sensations are true images of the 
things sensed? Thus reasoned Pyrrho; not so 
Epicurus. 

The Epicureans revived the doctrines of the 
Cyrenaic philosophers with such modifications as 
Platonism and Peripateticism had made neces- 
sary. Epicurus was walking in the "flowery and 
perfumed paths," which Aristippus had trod two 
centuries earlier and many precepts of the 
Cyrenaic school were appropriated by him: "The 
world within me and without flows away like a 
river, therefore let me make the most of what is 
here and now." The sense of beauty, which was 
so strong a characteristic of intellectual and 
ethical Greece, was expressed by this school 
axiomatically thus: "The true value of a soul is 



THE SCHOOLS OF GREECE 137 

in proportion to what it can admire." And this 
beautiful aphorism on duty is handed down from 
Aristippus : "Pass then through this little space 
of time conformably to nature, and end thy jour- 
ney in content, just as an olive falls off when it 
is ripe, blessing nature who produced it, and 
thanking the tree on which it grew." That our 
troubles are largely imaginary was realized by 
the disciples of this early school, who gave us a 
valuable suggestion in this: "To-day I have got 
out of all trouble, or rather I have cast out all 
trouble, for it was not outside, but within and in 
my opinions." 

The method of reasoning employed byl Epicurus 
was by analogy. Touching the universe, two 
things are affirmed: "Atoms and the Void." He 
borrows from 1 Democritus the thought and expres- 
sion: "The world is a fortuitous concourse of 
atoms." With Epicurus, "space is infinite and 
there are illimitable multitudes of indestructible 
and indivisible atoms in perpetual motion. In 
this infinite space the atoms are ever giving rise 
to new worlds, and these worlds are moving to- 
wards dissolution and new series of creations." 

In this conception we have a more exalted view 
of the world than that adopted by Christianity 
four hundred years later, — of a flat earth of 
limited extent, around which the sun and stars 
revolve for the benefit and wonder of man and 
for the glory of the God of the Jews. 

Epicurus believed in the gods of Greece; that 



138 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

"they were a higher order of being than man," 
but not the rulers of man. He would not deny 
the free-will and moral agency of man. He ad- 
vocated the worship of the gods, for that "we 
are benefited by the influence of worship reacting 
on ourselves." And he affirmed that "worship 
should not be inspired by either hope or fear." 
Man has but one existence ; his conception is at 
one end of life and his grave at the other. If a 
string has one end, it must likewise have two 
ends; to affirm a beginning is to presuppose an 
ending. 

Pleasure is the good thing to be attained; not 
sensuality, but a negative state in which there is 
no pain of body or of mind. Darkness is simply 
the absence of light, so with the Epicureans, 
pleasure is the absence of pain; not exuberance 
and excitement, but quiet peace of mind. Pru- 
dential wisdom was all in all. "We must balance 
the claims of each meditated pleasure against 
the evils that may ensue." We must weigh con- 
sequences. While the Epicureans put a high 
value on certain branches of the sciences and of 
learning, especially on physics, logic and ethics, 
yet they strenuously opposed the more exclusive 
and isolated life of the truly great scholars and 
philosophers of the previous century. They be- 
lieved in a commonwealth of happy people, rather 
than an aristocracy of intellectuals. We have an 
erroneous idea of the character of the Epicureans. 
They were not sensualists, as we understand that 



THE SCHOOLS OF GREECE 139 

term. Neither do we properly and fully estimate 
the character of the Stoics. They were not cold 
and implacable, nor were all the Cynics cynical. 

Epicurus was a man of plain appearance and 
simple tastes. His meals consisted of "barley 
bread, some Cythnian cheese and a half pint of 
wine." The Epicureans at Rome, surrounded by 
and associated with wealth and power, were not as 
circumspect in taste and habits as their brethren 
in more humble circumstances at Athens. 

The excellent and renowned Lucretius was an 
Epicurean. This virile thinker of the first cen- 
tury, B. C, opposed the superstitions of his 
time. He was possessed with a "divine doubt." 
He appealed to the revelations of nature and de- 
nied the supernatural government of the world; 
concerning the probabilities of a future life, he 
was doubtful. He said (Munro's translation) : 
"Now when ye suppose that the gods designed all 
things for the sake of men, ye seem to me in all 
respects to have strayed most widely from true 
reason." Lucretius lived at the time when the 
earth was thought to be flat and the sun, moon 
and stars revolved around it. He was the first 
evolutionist: "Nothing can come from nothing, 
none of the things, therefore, which seem to be 
lost is utterly lost, since nature replenishes one 
thing out of another and does not suffer anything 
to be begotten." Darwin's law of the survival of 
the fittest was anticipated by Lucretius : "For in 
the case of all things which you see breathing the 



140 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

breath of life, either craft, or courage, or else 
speed, has from the beginning of its existence 
protected and preserved each particular race." 
The primary conditions of creation: "The elemen- 
tal atoms and space." And he seems to have been 
inspired when he said: "The source of human ills 
is the fear of the gods and of death." 

The elder Pliny was an Epicurean. Near the 
end of the eighth decade of our era, in the reign 
of Vespasian, there were three men writing, whose 
works will never die or be forgotten. These men, 
closely associated in time and place, yet appar- 
ently unacquainted with one another, held opin- 
ions radically different, if not diametrically op- 
posite. Of these, St. Luke — the Synoptist — was 
a Greek and a convert to Christianity. (And 
we should remember that a "convert" is one whose 
opinions have been taken from, or impressed upon 
him by another and not derived from the exercise 
of his own reason and initiative.) Josephus — a 
Jew; while in Judea, a Pharisee; when at Rome, 
a Stoic. And Pliny the naturalist, a Roman and 
Epicurean. The first dedicated his work to 
Theophilus and wrote from Rome. The second 
dedicated his work to Emperor Vespasian, and 
wrote at Rome. The third dedicated his work 
to Titus and wrote from Naples. With the 
opinions of Luke and Josephus we are familiar 
enough; let us read from Pliny. — 

"All men, after their last day, return to what 
they were before the first; and after death there 



THE SCHOOLS OF GREECE 141 

is no more sensation left in the body, or in the 
soul, than there was before birth. But, this same 
vanity of ours extends even to the future, and 
lyingly fashions to itself an existence, even in the 
very moments which belong to death itself; at one 
time, it has conferred upon us the immortality 
of the soul ; at another transmigration ; and at 
another, it has given sensation to the shades be- 
low, and paid divine honors to the departed spirit, 
thus making a kind of deity of him who has but 
just ceased to be a man. As if, indeed, the mode 
of breathing with man was in any way different 
from that of other animals, and as if there were 
not many other animals to be found whose life 
is longer than that of man, and yet for whom no 
one ever presaged anything of a like immortality. 
For what is the actual substance of the soul, when 
taken by itself? Of what material does it con- 
sist? Where is the seat of its thoughts? How 
is it to see, or hear, or how to touch? And then, 
of what use is it, or what can it avail, if it has 
not these faculties? Where, too, is its residence, 
and what vast multitudes of these souls and spirits 
must there be after the lapse of so many ages? 
But all these are the mere figments of childish 
ravings, and of that mortality, which is so anx- 
ious never to cease to exist. It is a similar piece 
of vanity, too, to preserve the dead bodies of 
men; just like the promise that he shall come to 
life again, which was made by Democritus ; who, 
however, never has come to life again himself. 
Out upon it! What downright madness is it to 



142 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

suppose that life is to recommence after death? 
or indeed, what repose are we ever to enjoy, when 
we have been once born, if the soul is to retain its 
consciousness in heaven, and the shades of the 
dead in the infernal regions? This pleasing de- 
lusion, and this credulity, quite cancel that chief 
good of human nature, death, and, as it were, 
double the misery of him who is about to die, by 
anxiety as to what is to happen to him after it. 
And, indeed, if life really is a good, to whom can 
it be so to have once lived? 

"How much more easy, then, and how much 
more devoid of all doubts, is it for each of us to 
put his trust in himself, and guided by our knowl- 
edge of what our state has been before birth, 
to assume that that after death will be the same." 

(BVII. C56.) 

The Epicurean school of philosophy was an im- 
portant one down to A. D. 300. It was one of 
the four great schools (Platonists, Peripatetics, 
Stoics, and Epicureans) endowed by Athens by 
Marcus Aurelius, himself a Stoic, in A. D. 150. 

Epicureanism existed as a protest against Neo- 
Platonism and Christianity until some time after 
Constantine gave character and protection to 
Christianity — well into the fourth century. It 
appears again with more or less influence as a 
protest against institutional Christianity, in 
Europe, during the Renaissance. It was a power 
over the Roman world for a period of over seven 



THE SCHOOLS OF GREECE 143 

hundred years, and Epicurean doctrine has its 
followers to this day. 

THE PERIPATETICS 

There is nothing in the realm of romance more 
interesting than the story of the struggle of 
peripatetic doctrine with ignorance, with supersti- 
tion, with other schools or systems of philosophy, 
with Christianity, with alien races and with alien 
religions. It proved to be the leaven, that 
leavened the lump of ignorance and superstition, 
which had settled down over Europe with a pall 
of darkness ; the leaven, which caused the rebirth 
and transformation ; the leaven, that early in our 
era, energized the scholars of Arabia and Persia 
and which, later, bore more and better fruit in 
Europe than any other system of ethics or 
philosophy. 

Aristotle, the founder of the Peripatetic school, 
left the court of Philip of Macedon, where he had 
been engaged as teacher of Alexander, and re- 
turned to Athens in the year B. C. 335. He was 
forty-nine years of age. Aristotle had lived in 
Athens before he was called to the house of Philip, 
during which earlier residence there, he was a 
student of Plato's ; so he was not returning a 
stranger to Athens or unknown to the scholars of 
that city, then famous for its culture and learn- 
ing. Demosthenes was living at Athens at this 
time, and the memory and grave of Socrates 
were still fresh in the minds and to the eyes of 



144 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

the people of the city of the Violet Crown. 

Aristotle at once established his school, locat- 
ing it in the east side of the city, "in the covered 
walks near the Temple of Apollo," where he 
taught, while walking through the shaded 
grounds about the temple ; hence, his disciples were 
called "Peripatetics." 

Here, the system of Aristotle was developed; 
here, he wrote his great and most profound sys- 
tem of philosophy, logic and ethics, a work not 
surpassed in penetration and cogent reasoning 
by any before or since his day. 

The school was crowded with scholars. For 
thirteen years, the daily spectacle of a large 
gathering of studious men was presented to the 
people of Athens. These could be seen moving 
about in groups, from about ten o'clock in the 
morning until well into the afternoon, Aristotle 
moving among them, now declaiming, now argu- 
ing, but always teaching. Such earnest inquiry, 
such incessant application to study could not fail 
to bring important results. 

With the breaking up of the Macedonian em- 
pire, the Athenians, moved by the eloquence of 
Demosthenes, sought to regain their independence. 
Aristotle was known to be in sympathy with the 
fortunes of Alexander and the Macedonian rulers 
that succeeded him, and so Aristotle fled from 
Athens to Chalcis, where he died, B. C. 322, at 
the age of 65. 

The mantle of Aristotle fell upon his foremost 



THE SCHOOLS OF GREECE 145 

pupil in the Peripatetic school, one Theophrastus. 
His writings, the most of which had been written 
by his own hand, were likewise bequeathed to this 
scholar. Upon the death of Theophrastus the 
works and manuscripts of Aristotle passed into 
the possession of Neleus, a teacher in the Peripa- 
tetic school, who shortly thereafter moved from 
Athens to Asia Minor, and the whole collection 
of Aristotle's works was; soon thereafter concealed 
in a vault, for it appears that the king of Per- 
gamus was at the time levying contributions for 
a library, and Neleus hid the writings of Aristotle, 
fearing lest the king should take them. Neleus 
died, and the place of concealment of the writings 
was unknown, so that the works remained thus hid- 
den from the knowledge of men until they were 
discovered one hundred and eighty-seven years 
later, or about the year B. C. 100. And now the 
entire collection was sold to a book collector, who 
carried the works back to Athens. Thus, after 
an absence of two hundred years the manuscripts 
came back to the place of their birth. When 
Sulla sacked Athens in B. C. 86, the works of 
Aristotle were discovered and taken to Rome, 
where, under the direction of Cicero, the manu- 
scripts were arranged in proper order and an edi- 
tion compiled by competent Greek scholars. This 
work was done about B. C. 50. 

We can readily understand and appreciate the 
embarrassment to the Peripatetic school, which 
the prolonged loss of the works of its founder 



146 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

occasioned. Generations came and passed away, 
but Peripateticism survived the long interval and 
kept the lamp of Aristotelian philosophy burn- 
ing in all the intellectual centers of Greece. It 
must be observed, however, that the school was 
greatly shorn of its rich and virile activity, for 
during this period of two centuries the schools 
of the Stoics and the Epicureans were developed 
and these appropriated much that the earlier 
Peripatetics had taught. So, for a time, the work 
of the Peripatetics was more by way of inter- 
preting the works and conceptions of their master, 
than in applying and teaching those doctrines 
which, two centuries earlier, had stirred the minds 
of men profoundly. The school revived somewhat 
with the recovery of the works of Aristotle and 
embraced the best scholarship of Greece from B. 
C. 100 to A. D. 200. This is especially true of 
the Peripatetic conceptions of logic and ethics. 
The Greek theologians of the first centuries of 
our era were profoundly impressed by the logic 
and force of Peripateticism, and those who were 
charged with heresy and anathematized by coun- 
cils, frequently embraced the doctrines of Aris- 
totle and became avowed Peripatetics. 

We have now come with Peripateticism to the 
place in history where all the schools of Greece 
met their tragic end, to the all absorbing contest 
waged between the two great giants of that age, 
— Neo-Platonism and Christianity. 

We find such leaders in the school of Neo-Pla- 



THE SCHOOLS OF GREECE 147 

tonism as Porphyry, A. D. 280, and Iamblichus, 
A. D. 330, embracing Aristotelian doctrine and 
preaching its maxims in the true Peripatetic man- 
ner. And so, under the form of Neo-Platonism, 
we follow our great teacher and author, until we 
hear of the assassination of Hypatia, the cele- 
brated Neo-Platonist teacher, and the closing of 
the renowned school at Alexandria over which she 
had presided, followed by the closing of the school 
at Athens and the suppression of all the schools 
by the emperor, Justinian, at the behest of Chris- 
tian bishops. 

Christianity, with its in-graftings of mysticism 
and superstition, now stands alone, — the conqueror 
of all the schools of philosophy, the vanquisher 
of all liberal learning everywhere throughout the 
Roman empire. Ignorance and superstition now 
begin in all Europe their dark reign, which held 
men in thraldom for nearly a thousand years. 

It were easy now to draw the curtain across 
the stage and leave Peripateticism, struck down 
in the general slaughter of the schools, to remain 
until the resurrection period, which came, nine 
centuries later, with the Renaissance. But we 
can discern the lamp moving on, lighting a de- 
vious path through a well defined period of the 
world's history, which we will follow. 

Hypatia was assassinated in the year 415, 
through the influence of St. Cyril, bishop of Alex- 
andria. The council of Ephesus was held A. D. 
431. The dominating figure and spirit in that 



148 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

council was this same assassin, St. Cyril. At 
this council the proposition to worship the Virgin 
Mary was advocated by St. Cyril and the Greek 
bishops of Africa, and opposed by the Greek 
Patriarch, Nestorius, who occupied the Episcopal 
throne of Constantinople. By fraud, Nestorius 
and his followers were defeated in the council and 
soon thereafter Nestorius was banished to Arabia. 
Nestorius was a learned man in all the philosophy 
of the Greek schools and had a profound convic- 
tion of the truth of the doctrines of the Peripa- 
tetics. He was joined in exile by a large follow- 
ing, who held his religious views, and these settled 
at Edessa and established a college there. They 
were known as "Nestorians ;" this was in A. D. 
432. The college at Edessa taught Nestorian 
Christianity and Aristotelian logic and ethics. 
The school soon became crowded. There had re- 
mained in Arabia and Persia a lingering and in- 
effaceable residue of Greek civilization, art, and 
letters from the time when these states were a 
part of the Macedonian empire, so the work of 
the new school at Edessa was a revival of Greek 
letters and philosophy in those states, rather than 
the introduction there of these studies. The doc- 
trines of the Peripatetics, however, were new to 
the Arabians and Persians. The renown of this 
school gave to Edessa the name of "the Athens of 
Syria," and soon awoke the jealousy of the Chris- 
tian Church at Constantinople, and Emperor 
Zeno drove from Edessa the Nestorians and their 



THE SCHOOLS OF GREECE 149 

school in A. D. 489. The outrage did not dis- 
hearten the Nestorians, for they felt that they had 
a mission to perform, so they removed to Persia 
and established a school at Nisibis, also one at 
Nisabur. Here, too, the schools flourished and 
translations of Aristotle were made into the 
Syriac. And so Peripateticism flourished on 
Persian soil, as it had flourished centuries earlier 
in Greece. The popularity of these schools finally 
led the Nestorians to establish a college at Bag- 
dad. This city was the caliphate of Islam at 
that time and was famous for its commerce, its 
learning and its religious influences. Moham- 
medanism was centered at Bagdad. The Nes- 
torian institution soon assumed the proportions 
and importance of a university. It held steadily 
to the doctrines of the Peripatetics and in the 
ninth century translated the works of Aristotle 
into Arabic. This was a most important work 
and of far-reaching effect. It brought the study 
of the greatest of the Greek philosophers before 
the Moslem scholars of that remote city and 
country, and these became enthusiastic exponents 
of Peripateticism. A young Arabian who had 
just graduated from this school stated, in a pub- 
lic address, on the subject of Aristotle's works and 
philosophy: "The doctrine is fixed, truth has 
been ascertained; all we need is a faithful inter- 
pretation." 

While all Christendom was asleep in the dark- 
ness of ignorance and superstition; when Europe 



150 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

was sunk well nigh to the verge of barbarism, 
borne down by the prolonged and incessant weight 
of the cross ; when philosophy and liberal learning 
had vanished, and while only such arts as the 
Church could use, — architecture, painting and 
music, — were lingering languidly, there were de- 
veloping in Mohammedan Arabia splendid schol- 
ars and philosophers, men familiar with the works 
of Aristotle and with the maxims of the Peripa- 
tetics ofi the third century B. C. 

Now, what was the fruit of all these centuries 
of growth and bloom of this exotic plant in Asia? 
From Bagdad the doctrines of the Peripatetics 
and the full-grown philosophy of Aristotle burst 
in a flood of light, at the Court of the Saracens 
in Cordova, in the closing years of the tenth cen- 
tury. We should remember that it was in a city 
of Mohammedan Spain that the first school in 
Europe for the study of Aristotle, and the first 
observatory for the study of astronomy, were es- 
tablished. Soon the schools, or colleges, in Cor- 
dova reached to twenty-seven in number and a 
splendid library was established ; books from Bag- 
dad, Cairo, Damascus and Alexandria were gath- 
ered and brought to Cordova. 

Passing on, we soon see coming forth from the 
schools of Cordova, a new exponent of Aristotle 
and a worthy expounder of Peripatetic doctrines 
in the person of Averroes. This Mohammedan 
electrified Europe with his interpretations of Aris- 
totelian philosophy, with his original investiga- 



THE SCHOOLS OF GREECE 151 

tions in the natural sciences and his opinions 
derived therefrom. 

A group of Jewish scholars, that the Christians 
had driven out of Spain, located at Narbonne, 
translated the works of Averroes and the Arabian 
translations of Aristotle, into Latin. These works 
had a lively and profound influence on the "School- 
men," for it must be borne in mind that the school- 
men of Europe inherited Arabian philosophy 
from the Saracens of Spain and that they got 
their Aristotle from Averroes in 1198. An his- 
torian states this clearly: "Averroes was the 
greatest interpreter of Aristotle to the later 
schoolmen and worthy a place beside the sages 
of ancient Greece." This philosophy, or ethics, 
fell on unfriendly ground, however, for scholas- 
ticism was bound to the Church and had no inde- 
pendent existence aside from it. It was quite 
otherwise with that other body of scholars, de- 
veloping at this time, — the Humanists. These 
were opposed to having moral ideals debased by 
the corruption and corrupting influences then 
pertaining to, if not inherent in, the Christian 
religion, and eagerly sought, and appropriated, 
the morality of Aristotle, which, as we shall see 
presently, is based on reason and not on piety. 
This splendid group of scholars was now moved 
by an urgent desire to the study of Greek classics 
and, strange as it may appear, the study of 
Greek had well nigh perished from the earth, save 
that remnant of the ancient language which was 



152 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

preserved in Arabia, and that which was preserved 
by the patriarchs of the Greek Church at Con- 
stantinople. This was all that was then known 
to exist. Petrarch had employed a monk of the 
Greek Church to read and translate to him, orally, 
the works of Aristotle, and Boccaccio had fol- 
lowed a similar course. The light that had been 
lit at Cordova now shone over the intellectual 
centers of Europe and an insatiable thirst for 
Aristotle, and the works of the old Greek schools, 
was now consuming the humanists. It was sur- 
mised that vast treasures, writings of the philos- 
ophers of Greece, had been stored away in vaults 
at Constantinople, so an association of the human- 
ists appointed delegates to go to Constantinople 
and, if possible, secure the aid of the patriarch 
of the Greek Church to assist them in making a 
search for the lost or hidden manuscripts and 
books of the ancient Greek scholars and philos- 
ophers. This work was undertaken with real en- 
thusiam and met with a measure of success. "I 
go," said Cyriac of Anconia, "I go to raise the 
dead !" Cyriac was successful to a considerable 
extent. He secured many manuscripts of value, 
but he did not raise the dead. However, he did 
raise the Holy Inquisition, which was much worse. 
With the revival of the study of Aristotle and 
the independent opinions now expressed by the 
humanists, the Church began to thunder its 
wonted disapproval, for the humanists took for 
their models the great men of antiquity, rather 



THE SCHOOLS OF GREECE 153 

than the saints of the Church. It is admitted 
that Peripatetic studies, at this time, became the 
source of heresies and that the heretical sects pros- 
ecuted the study of Aristotle with renewed vigor 
and zeal. As the schoolmen had inherited Arabian 
philosophy from the Saracens of Spain, who had 
drawn their Aristotle and Peripateticism from 
Averroes, the deflection among the schoolmen 
from established Christianity was directly trace- 
able to these doctrines, and pursuant to this fact 
the Church, in council, at Paris, A. D. 1209, for- 
bade the study of Aristotle's works, and, in 1215, 
reiterated this prohibition and included the works 
of Averroes. 

It would be interesting to follow the able dis- 
senters from the established opinions of the Church, 
that arose at about this time, growing out of the 
study of Aristotle. Abelard was the center of 
this group in the twelfth century. Opposed to 
Abelard and his party was the able and famous 
Thomas Aquinas, who sought to subordinate all 
science to conform with Roman Catholic Chris- 
tianity. Aquinas comprehended, admired, and 
became a patron of the doctrines of Aristotle, but 
in the controversy which arose united his influ- 
ence, and heart, with the Church, thus subordinat- 
ing reason to faith. 

We can follow the doctrines and the interpreta- 
tions of Averroes through the scholasticism of the 
latter schoolmen, through the splendid works of 
the classical humanists into the wide and all power- 



154 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

ful rebirth of learning in Europe which we call 
the Renaissance. This influence contributed to 
and made possible, if not necessary, the great 
movement in Germany, which culminated in the 
Reformation, and with it a return by many to the 
simple and informal manner of worship of the 
primitive Christians. 

Martin Luther, however, appears not to have 
been conscious of the fact that the Reformation 
was in any way a sequence of the study of Aris- 
totle, which had, for two centuries preceding, pre- 
pared the minds of men for emancipation from the 
corrupt and licentious domination of them by the 
Church of Rome. Luther bursts forth in con- 
demnation of Peripateticism and the schools : 
"Aristotle, that histrionic mountebank, who, 
from behind a Greek mask, has so long bewitched 
the Church of Christ; that most cunning juggler 
of souls, whom, if he had not been accredited as of 
human blood and bone, we should have been justi- 
fied in maintaining to be the veritable devil." 

Another contributing cause to the "Re-birth" 
was the capture of Constantinople by the Turks 
in 1453 and the release to the world of a vast 
amount of the Greek literature of the old mas- 
ters. 

Humanity and civilization owe much to Peripa- 
teticism; and humanity and civilization owe much 
to Arabian philosophy, and to Moslem scholars, 
for giving back to Europe, and the world, the 
great works of the Greek schools, which Christian- 



THE SCHOOLS OF GREECE 155 

ity had suppressed in the fourth and fifth cen- 
turies. And now what had Christianity given 
the world in precept and example better than the 
sturdy morality and probity of the Stoics and 
Peripatetics? For a thousand years the Church 
had in all Europe enjoyed possession of unlimited 
power. It had crowned and sceptred kings and 
through them governed nations and controlled 
the bodies and lives of men. It held the keys of 
St. Peter and at pleasure bound or loosed the souls 
of men and women through eternity. At the be- 
ginning of the Renaissance militant Christianity 
in Italy came to flower ( !) in princes like Machia- 
velli, Galeazzo M. Sforza, Gianpaolo Baglioni 
and the Medici, and in Pontiffs and church dig- 
nitaries such as Pope Paul III., Sixtus IV., Alex- 
ander VI., and Caesar Borgia, men who — or many 
of whom — found their ideals and activities chiefly 
in carnal pleasures, incestuous lust, fratricide and 
parricide. 

At this time, the Church was terrified and in- 
furiated by the progress of reforms. To be a 
scholar was to be suspected by the Church of im- 
morality, of heresy and atheism, and these were 
frequently included in one indictment. So it ap- 
pears, that the scholars of this era became involved 
with the Church, and persecutions and prosecu- 
tions were dealt out against them, with more bit- 
terness, and with less justification, than the prose- 
cutions of the Christians had been carried on by 
the emperors ; for where the emperors of Rome 



156 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

had executed thousands, the Church now killed 
off its tens of thousands. The comparison is fa- 
vorable to the Roman magistrates also from the 
fact that they did not go beyond the requirements 
of the law, except in the persecutions under Nero, 
which, while not numerous, and while confined 
to the city, still were without due process of 
law. 

The system of worship in Rome, at the begin- 
ning of our era and for long before, was protected 
by law. Even the building of the Pantheon at 
Rome by Agrippa, B. C. 25, did not bring about 
a repeal of the laws governing public worship. 
Let us examine a number of cases of martyrdom 
which came about pursuant to law, and these may 
be taken as a sample of all. The early Christians 
were pleased to call all prosecutions of them 
"persecutions." We shall begin with the unjust, 
but celebrated case of the philosopher Socrates. 
At this time, B. C. 399, the court of the Areopagus 
considered cases, which came under the heads of 
jurisprudence, politics and religion. The form 
of indictment against Socrates, which has come 
down to us through Xenophon, was this : "Soc- 
rates behaves wrongfully, in not acknowledging 
those as gods whom the state holds to be gods, 
and in introducing new gods of his own ; he acts 
wrongfully also in corrupting the youth." Forty 
years earlier a similar indictment for atheism had 
been brought against Anaxagoras, preceptor of 
Socrates. This early scholar, and doubter, held 



THE SCHOOLS OF GREECE 157 

to belief in the primary principles of monotheism 
and opposed his opinions to those of Homer, as 
expressed in the Iliad, which are polytheistic and 
from which the state religion of Greece had been 
evolved. It required all the resources and pres- 
tige of Pericles to save him from martyrdom. 
This indictment of Socrates was brought by mem- 
bers of the school, or profession, of Sophists, a 
class which Socrates had often criticised for their 
insincerity and corruption. "Am I become your 
enemy because I tell you the truth?" rejoins Soc- 
rates who appeared before the jury in his own de- 
fense. This defense reveals much that is perti- 
nent to our subject. I quote from Plato's Apol- 
ogy. "I should have done what was decidedly 
wrong, O Athenians, if, when the Archons whom 
you elected ordered me, at Potidaea, at Delium and 
at Amphipolis to accept the post given me in the 
war, and stand where I was ordered, to stand at 
the risk of death ; if then, I say, I had not obeyed 
the command, and exposed my life willingly for 
the good of my country ; but when the order came 
from a god, as I had the best reason to believe 
that a god did order me to spend my life phi- 
losophizing, and in proving myself and others, 
whether we were living according to right reason ; 
if in such circumstances I should now, from fear 
otf death, or from any other motive, leave my post, 
and become a deserter, this were indeed a sin. 
. . . If, notwithstanding this declaration of 
my prosecutor, you should still be unconvinced, 



158 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

and say, — O Socrates, for the present we discharge 
you but on this condition, that for the future you 
shall not go on philosophizing and proving, as 
you have hitherto done; and, if you are caught 
doing so, then you shall die, — if on these condi- 
tions you are now willing to acquit me I should 
say to you, — O Athenians, that, while I cherish 
all loyal respect and love for you, I choose to obey 
the gods rather than men, and so long as I live 
and breathe, I will never cease philosophizing and 
exhorting any of you with whom I may happen 
to converse, and addressing him as I have been 
wont, thus, — O my excellent fellow citizen of a 
state the most famous for wisdom and for re- 
sources, is it seemly in you to feel no shame if, 
while you are spending your strength in the ac- 
cumulation of money, and in the acquisition of 
civic reputation, you bestow not the slightest pains 
to have your soul as well furnished with intelli- 
gence as your life is with prosperity? . . . 
And in this wise I will speak to every man whom 
I shall converse with, be he citizen, or be he 
stranger, and the rather if he be a fellow citizen 
to whom I am bound by nearer and more indissolu- 
ble ties. For this is precisely what I am com- 
manded to do by the god; and if the god did in- 
deed give forth this command, then must I dis- 
tinctly declare that no greater blessing could be 
to this city than that, so long as I do live, I shall 
live to execute the divine command. . . . 
But it perhaps may seem strange to some one, 



THE SCHOOLS OF GREECE 159 

that, while I go about the city giving counsel to 
every man in this busy fashion, with all my fond- 
ness for business I have not found my way into 
public life, nor come forward on this stage to ad- 
vise you on public affairs. Now the cause of this 
is none other than that which you have frequently 
heard me mention, namely, that something divine 
and superhuman to which Meletus in his address 
scoffingly alluded; for this is the sober truth, O 
ye judges, that from my boyhood I have, on all 
important occasions, been wont to hear a voice 
which, whenever it speaks in reference to what 
I am about to do, always warns me to refrain, 
but never urges me to perform. This voice it is 
and nothing else, which forbade me to meddle 
with public affairs, and forbade me very wisely, 
as I can now clearly perceive, and with a most ex- 
cellent result ; for of this, O Athenians, be assured, 
if I had essayed at an early period of my life to 
manage your public business, I should without 
doubt have perished long ago and done no good 
either to you or to myself. And be not wroth 
with me if in this I tell you the truth ; the man does 
not exist who shall be able to save his life any- 
where, if he shall set himself honestly and persist- 
ently to oppose you or any other multitude of peo- 
ple when you are violently bent on doing things 
unjust and unlawful; whosoever, therefore, would 
live on this earth as the champion of right and 
justice, if only for a little while, amongst men, 
must make up his mind to do good as a private 



160 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

person andj forego all ambition to serve the public 
in a political capacity." 

On the eve of his execution he said to some 
friends : "Well, friends, we have been discoursing 
for this last hour on the immortality of the soul, 
and there are many points about that matter on 
which he were a bold man who should readily dog- 
matize; but one thing I seem to know full cer- 
tainly, that whosoever during his earthly life has 
flung sensual pleasures behind him, and been stu- 
dious to adorn his soul, not with conventional and 
adventitious trappings, but with its own proper 
decorations, — temperance and justice, courage, 
freedom, and truth — the person so prepared 
waits cheerfully to perform the journey to the un- 
seen world at whatever period Fate may choose 
to call him." 

Socrates might have saved himself by paying 
a fine and by giving some assurances that he would 
modify his outspoken attitude towards the forms 
of public worship, but he would have vindication, 
or death, and so, this great man of antiquity was 
brought to martyrdom, but not, however, until 
the court had given a month's delay and had pro- 
posed many concessions. Sad and unfortunate, 
as this case appears to be, yet the venerated 
court on Mars' Hill considered the indictment and 
gave its judgment. 

In the year 175 B. C, occurred the martyrdom 
of the Maccabees ; over a thousand Jews suffered 
by fire and smoke, pursuant to a decree of Anti- 



THE SCHOOLS OF GREECE 161 

ochus Epiphanes, a Macedonian king, or rather, 
king of the principality of Syria, for by this time 
the Macedonian empire had been divided into three 
principalities. The full account of these uncalled 
for and unfortunate persecutions may be found 
in the First and Second "Maccabees," — Apocry- 
phal books of the Old Testament, — but I shall 
draw from! the account given of them by Josephus. 
Upon the death of Onias, the High Priest, the 
high priesthood fell to his brother Jesus, 8 — and 
much dissatisfaction then arose. This disturb- 
ance came up for consideration by the king at An- 
tioch, and he deemed it best, for the tranquillity 
of his kingdom, that Jesus should be deposed from 
the high office, and that a younger brother named 
Menelaus, should be appointed in his place, and 
this was soon brought about by the order of Anti- 
ochus. Upon this event a sedition broke out among 
the Jews at Jerusalem, which was led by the de- 
posed High Priest — Jesus, and it appears that 
the influential class followed the deposed Jesus, 
that the sedition spread over all Judea and as- 
sumed the importance of a rebellion against the 
king and the government. The king now ap- 
pears to have been greatly distressed over the un- 

s "Jesus" was a common name with the Jews. There 
was one High Priest by this name among the Asmonean 
families and four among the Idumaean. There were two 
High Priests by this name shortly before the coming of 
Jesus of Nazareth. The unspeakable Herod, the King and 
Idumaean, brought an end to the Asmonean kings and 
priests by assassinating them. 



162 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

settled state of the Jews and finally determined 
to press the worship, and the gods, of Greece upon 
the Jews to the end, as he affirmed in his decree, 
that the form of worship of all his subjects might 
be uniform. This was a very serious undertak- 
ing, and a more astute king would not have at- 
tempted it. From what Josephus states, it is 
not clear whether Antiochus was sincere in the dec- 
larations of the purpose of his decree, to bring 
about a uniformity of public worship throughout 
his principality, or whether it was a pretext for a 
general persecution of the Jews. 

It appears that the High Priest Menelaus, and 
all the Jews that followed him, complied with the 
king's decree, threw over the worship of Jehovah 
and accepted the gods of Greece. The Samaritan 
Jews went even farther. They converted their 
splendid temple on Mount Gerizzim, which had 
been built for them by Sanballat, at the request 
of his son-in-law, Manasseh, brother to the High 
Priest Jaddua, which had been dedicated to the 
worship of Jehovah, the God of the Jews, into a 
temple for the worship of the gods of Greece; 
disowned their country, denied their nationality, 
bowed down before, and paid divine honors to 
Antiochus, all for repose and the pursuit of 
wealth. Their petition to the king, upon the 
breaking out of the persecution, runs thus: "To 
King Antiochus the God, a memorial from the 
Sidonians, who live at Shechem : Our forefathers, 
upon certain frequent plagues, and as following 



THE SCHOOLS OF GREECE 163 

a certain ancient superstition, had a custom of 
observing that day which by the Jews ( !) is called 
the Sabbath. And when they had erected a tem- 
ple at the Mount called Gerizzim, though with- 
out a name, they offered upon it the proper sacri- 
fices. Now upon the just treatment of these 
wicked Jews, those that manage their affairs, sup- 
posing that we were of kin to them, and practiced 
as they do, make us liable to the same accusa- 
tions, although we are originally Sidonians, as 
is evident from the public records. We therefore 
beseech thee, our benefactor and Savior, to give 
orders to Apollonius, the governor of this part of 
the country, and to Nicanor, the procurator of 
thy affairs, to give us no disturbance, nor to lay 
to our charge what the Jews are accused of, since 
we are aliens from their nation, and from their 
customs ; but let our temple, which at present hath 
no name at all, be named the Temple of Jupiter 
Hellenius. If this were done, we should be no 
longer disturbed, but should be more intent on 
our own occupation with quietness, and so bring 
in a greater revenue to thee." 

This gem of duplicity is without a parallel in 
history. It brought relief, however, to the Sa- 
maritan Jews and served its purpose well. 

The followers of the deposed High Priest, Je- 
sus, included the numerous and renowned family 
of the Maccabees. These were descended from the 
Asmoneans, — a family which ruled over the Jews 
for about one hundred and thirty years and whose 



164 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

ascendency was continued down to about 37 B. 
C. The wife of Herod the Great, Meriamme, 
was a direct descendant of the Asmoneans and as 
well of the Maccabees. The Maccabees remained 
faithful to the traditions and laws of their fore- 
fathers and declined to comply with the king's 
decree. They led in this opposition and it was 
from this family, or tribe, that over a thousand 
members suffered martyrdom. 

After all persuasion had failed, and the perse- 
cution of the Maccabees had availed nothing, 
Antiochus entered Jerusalem with a great army 
and began a systematic persecution of the Jews 
in their ancient stronghold and before their vener- 
ated temple. Josephus describes this event. 

"And King Antiochus sacked Jerusalem and 
robbed and desecrated the temple, and when he 
had overthrown the city walls, he built a citadel in 
the lower part of the city, for the place was high, 
and overlooked the temple, on which account he 
fortified it with! high walls and towers and put into 
it a garrison of Macedonians. . . . And 
when the king had built an Idol altar upon God's 
altar, he slew swine upon it, and so offered a sac- 
rifice neither according to the law, nor the Jew- 
ish religious worship. . . . He also compelled 
them to forsake the worship which they paid their 
own God and to adore those whom he took to be 
gods, and made them build temples, and raise 
Idol altars in every city and village and offer swine 
upon them every day. He also commanded them 



THE SCHOOLS OF GREECE 165 

not to circumcise their sons, and threatened to pun- 
ish any that should be found to have transgressed 
his injunction. . . . The best men and noblest 
souls were disobedient and on which account they 
every day underwent great miseries and bit- 
ter torments, for they were whipped with rods, 
and their bodies were torn to pieces, and were 
crucified while they were still alive and breathed; 
they also strangled those women, and their sons 
whom they had circumcised, as the king had ap- 
pointed hanging their sons upon their necks as 
they were upon the cross." 

The Jews now took up arms and were led by 
the Asmonean, Mattathias Maccabeus, and while 
the war was in progress, Antiochus died and was 
succeeded by his son, Antiochus Eupator, who 
continued the war and the persecutions for a short 
period but finally desisted. The Jews soon gath- 
ered themselves together and purified the temple 
at Jerusalem and appointed Judas Maccabeus, 
brother of Mattathias, their High Priest, and con- 
tinued to worship Jehovah and to live according to 
the laws of Moses. 

This persecution was exceedingly unjust, 
though it was carried on pursuant to the king's 
decree, which in that age and with the Macedonian 
kings, was law. I 

Mani, a prophet and founder of the Mani- 
chsean cult, one of the great Aryan religions, and 
one that influenced and modified Christianity 
in the third, fourth and fifth centuries, was tried 



166 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

before King Bahram L, on an indictment brought 
by the Magian priests, and was condemned for 
the crime of atheism (disbelief in the gods of 
another cult of which these priests were the mili- 
tant representatives) and was crucified at Ctesi- 
phon A. D. 276. His disciples in Persia were 
persecuted and dispersed, many suffering martyr- 
dom. 

The Martyrdom of John the Baptist, by order 
of Herod, was apparently without other author- 
ity than that possessed by a Tetrarch. 

James, the brother of Jesus, was soon there- 
after condemned by the Sanhedrin, presided over 
at that time by the Sadducee High Priest, Ananus. 
This judgment was not acquiesced in by the pro- 
curator, Albinus, and Agrippa caused Ananus to 
be deprived of the office of High Priest. 

Of Jesus, it is not necessary to make mention, 
except to say that^ the procurator, Pontius Pilate, 
assented to the decree of the Sanhedrin and that 
He was crucified pursuant thereto. 

Stephen, one of the first seven deacons of the 
Nazarene Church, appointed by the Apostles, was 
condemned by the Sanhedrin and executed A. D. 
37. The judgment of the Sanhedrin appears not 
to have been approved or taken notice of by the 
procurator. This fact may well justify the doubt 
that Stephen was tried before the Sanhedrin. 

St. Poly carp suffered martyrdom under Tra- 
jan in February A. D. 155. The proconsul at 
Smyrna, before whom he was tried, whose name 



THE SCHOOLS OF GREECE 167 

was Quadratus, used every endeavor within his 
power to save him. Polycarp, could have made 
it possible and easy for the magistrate to save 
him, but he would make no concessions to his ac- 
cusers* The hearing was adjourned by the pro- 
consul, that he might personally labor with the 
accused, to induce him to make such concessions 
as would prevent a verdict of death. Polycarp 
acted as one courting death, rather than one who 
would escape it. 

Christians were arraigned under Emperor An- 
toninus Pius on such charges as these: that they 
were atheists ; that they were rebels against the 
Roman government ; that they were evil doers ; 
that they were faithless to the gods, to the em- 
peror and to society. Justin Martyr, a Greek 
philosopher of the Peripatetic school, and con- 
vert to Christianity, suffered martyrdom in A. D. 
165. In his "apology" which was addressed to 
Emperor Pius, he says: "Judge us by a scrupu- 
lous and enlightened equity, not by mere pre- 
sumption, nor in the name of superstition, nor by 
the persuasion of calumny. We are atheists if 
it is atheism not to acknowledge your gods, but 
we hold this glorious atheism in common with 
Socrates, who was martyred as we are. We are 
not rebels ; the kingdom founded by Jesus is 
purely spiritual and need be no cause of alarm 
to the emperors. We worship God only, but we 
joyfully obey and acknowledge you as our prince 
and governor. We are not criminals ; the cruci- 



168 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

fied one, whom we worship, is the Divine Word." 
Justin appears to have been tried before 
"Rusticus, a Roman magistrate, who was a Stoic." 
He professed his faith in the "God of Heaven 
and Earth," and in "His son the Master of 
Truth," and expressed the conviction that after 
death he would "share a blessed immortality." 
He was then executed. 

When St. Cyprian was condemned to martyr- 
dom, the decree of the magistrate was withheld 
for three days, and Cyprian was importuned by 
the officer to concede something, that the magis- 
trate might let him go free, but Cyprian would 
make no concessions. The decree was finally en- 
tered: "That Thascius Cyprianus should be im- 
mediately beheaded, as the enemy of the gods of 
Rome and as the chief and ringleader of a 
criminal association, which he has seduced into 
an impious resistance against the laws of the most 
holy emperors — Valerian and Gallienus." It is 
further related that when the decree was read, 
the multitude of Christians present sent up the 
shout: — ''And we will die with him." Cyprian 
heard the verdict with composure, and when led 
to execution, bequeathed his money and the 
valuables that were on his person to his execu- 
tioners. 

After persecuting the Christians for six years, 
Galerius gave up the effort. His decree has been 
preserved to us and is interesting, for it discloses 
the character of the mind of the emperor and gives 



THE SCHOOLS OF GREECE 169 

us an insight into relationships and associations 
existing in Rome at that time. The persecutions 
of Christians under Galerius were according to 
the forms of law. The decree: "Among the im- 
portant cares which have occupied our mind for 
the utility and preservation of the empire, it was 
our intention to correct and re-establish all things 
according to the ancient laws and public disci- 
pline of the Romans. We were particularly de- 
sirous of reclaiming into the way of reason and 
nature, the deluded Christians, who had re- 
nounced the religion and ceremonies instituted by 
their fathers ; and presumptively despising the 
practice of antiquity, had invented extravagant 
laws and opinions according to the dictates of 
their fancy, and had collected a various society 
from the different provinces of our empire. The 
edicts, which we have published to enforce the 
worship of the gods, having exposed many of the 
Christians to danger and distress ; many having 
suffered death, and many more, who still persist 
in their impious folly, being left destitute of any 
exercise of religion, we are disposed to extend to 
those unhappy men the effects of our wonted 
clemency. We permit them, therefore, freely to 
profess their private opinions, and to assemble 
in their conventicles without fear or molestation, 
provided always that they preserve due respect 
to the established laws and government. 

"By another rescript we shall signify our in- 
tention to the judges and magistrates ; and we 



170 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

hope that our indulgence will engage the 
Christians to offer up their prayers to the 
Deity whom they adore, for our safety and 
prosperity, for their own, and for that of the re- 
public." 

With the emperors, then, we find that the 
prosecution of Christians followed violation of 
the laws of Rome. How was it with the Chris- 
tian Church? 

Hypatiaj was the first martyr to Christian hate. 
Her school of Platonism was both influential and 
popular; the Christian Church at Alexandria was 
jealous and resentful, and so the bishop and his 
suffragans brought about her martyrdom with- 
out process of law. 

Bruno was burnt in Rome by the Church be- 
cause he believed, with Copernicus, that there are 
other worlds than this, and that the Church's 
conception of an anthropomorphous God of the 
universe was preposterous. The revelations of 
astronomy were in conflict with the revelations 
of scripture; hence astronomers were heretics and 
should be burnt alive. Celsus, in the second 
century, had said: "Faith is the ability or power 
which enables one to say that he believes a thing 
which is incredible." To recant, one must have 
the opposite disposition of mind and deny a 
proposition which he had affirmed and which he 
knows to be true. Bruno would not do this. In 
the galaxy of adored Christian martyrs there is 
not a name as bright and glorious as that of this 



THE SCHOOLS OF GREECE 171 

unchristian martyr ; not one saint who had evinced 
a more exalted regard for truth, not one who 
gave up as much for principle. The Christian 
martyr saw heaven, Jesus and an eternity of 
happiness before him, and behind was apotheosis. 
For Bruno there was no paradise awaiting, and 
behind no "storied urn or animated bust." The 
Christians suffered martyrdom for reward, 
Bruno for honor. The execution of this splendid 
man appears to have been without other process 
of law than the ecclesiastical court of the Inquisi- 
tion. 

Then, there was the martyrdom of Servetus at 
Geneva. Calvin and Calvinism were the authors 
of this crime. Servetus had said that the genuine 
doctrines of Christianity had been lost before 
the day of the Nicene council. Porphyry had 
made a similar criticism in the third century. At 
the time Servetus was burnt in Geneva, there was 
no civil law prescribing capital punishment in all 
Switzerland. 

John Huss had said that Christ, not Peter, is 
the head of the Church. For this, the council of 
Constance decreed that he be burnt alive. This 
verdict, and that other one rendered a few days 
later, consigning Jerome of Prague to the flames 
for criticising the acts of the council in the case 
of Huss, appear to have been approved by the 
emperor, for he was in attendance at the council 
and cognizant of the trials of these men. If the 
verdict was lawful, it is upon the theory, ap- 



172 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

proved by fools, that "the king can do no wrong." 
The martyrdom of Savonarola and his two 
friends and fellow workers, at Florence, in 1496, 
are worthy of notice. Savonarola was an ex- 
ceptionally able man; he was a great preacher, a 
great teacher, a reformer and a statesman. His 
morality was drawn from the ethical philosophy 
of Aristotle and was sanctified by the best pre- 
cepts of Jesus. He had inherited a love of the 
classics from the humanists and had consecrated 
all to the work of the ministry. His only crime 
was that he opposed the luxury and extrava- 
gance of Lorenzo de Medici, the ruler of Florence, 
declaimed against the corruption and immorality 
of Pope Alexander, and declared that there 
should be agreement between the acts and the 
professions of men. So it was resolved at Rome 
that Savonarola should be sacrificed, for having 
thus made severe criticism of the morals of His 
Holiness, the Vicar of Christ. When Alexander 
was cautioned, by his advisers at Florence, that 
the procedure was not without danger, he replied : 
"He shall die even though he were a second John 
the Baptist." And so, after long torture, 
Savonarola and his co-laborers, Girolamo and 
Domenico, were consigned to the flames. As far 
as I can ascertain, the procedure was without 
process of law. So with three dissenters from 
the established creed, touching the trinity, who 
suffered martyrdom in England in 1611. The 
condemnation and execution of these can hardly 



THE SCHOOLS OF GREECE 173 

be said to have been according to the spirit, or 
the form, of Anglo-Saxon law. 

We may consider here another class of execu- 
tions by the Church. If the total martyrdoms 
of early Christians under the emperors were, as 
many historians state, about 6000, and those 
executions were performed pursuant to judicial 
procedure, what shall we say of the institution 
created in the name of Jesus and early presided 
over by that zealous but infamous churchman, 
Torquemada, which tortured to the verge of 
death over 300,000 dissenters and actually killed 
32,000 victims during its career? What of the 
massacre of 40,000 Huguenots in Paris on St. 
Bartholomew's day, inspired by the Church? 
What of the thousands massacred at the Sicilian 
Vespers, at Avignon and Languedoc? We may 
pause to ask: Shall we judge a tree by its fruit? 
Shall we judge a doctrine by its exponents? 
Yes ; but we should first examine well, and ascer- 
tain, if the exponents are in all things consistent 
with the profession they make. We should give 
credit and honor to those who have given com- 
fort, support and ideals to men in the name of 
Him who said: "Blessed are the peacemakers, for 
they shall be called the children of God." But 
we should, as well, condemn those who opposed, 
oppressed and persecuted men for opinion's sake, 
however holy may have been, or may be, the 
insignia of their office. 

But to return to the Ethics of Aristotle. In 



174 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

doing so we must make some comparisons, or 
rather contrast his doctrines briefly with three 
other schools, for Aristotle did not teach by pre- 
cepts or express himself in axioms, and it is only 
with some difficulty that his views can be presented 
briefly and clearly. 

John Stuart Blackie, D. D., in his celebrated 
work on Ethics, refers to Aristotle thus: "The 
reputation which Aristotle maintained among 
ancient Greeks and Romans, both as a specula- 
tor and as a wise guide in the conduct of life, 
was increased rather than diminished when 
brought into contact with the new moral force 
of Christianity. No doubt, Plato, at first, was 
the natural vestibule through which the cultivated 
Greeks of Alexandria entered the Temple of 
Christian faith, but after that faith, partly in 
league with Plato, and partly in spite of Plato, 
had achieved its natural triumph, Aristotle, the 
clean cut, and keen, but by no means devout 
master of all knowledge, by a sort of a reaction, 
as it should appear, in the middle ages, began 
to assert an exclusive dominance in the 
schools. . . . To all who were anxious for 
clear and exact knowledge in matters visible and 
tangible, Aristotle was the only guide." This is 
a very fair statement of the case, coming from a 
Christian theologian. 

Socrates was the father of moral philosophy 
and Plato may be said to be in accord with 
Socrates. Aristotle, while agreeing with these 



THE SCHOOLS OF GREECE 175 

on several important points, had a method of con- 
sidering propositions altogether different. These 
three great thinkers comprise the group known 
as the Athenian Philosophers. 
Plato constructed theories and propositions. 
Aristotle dissected propositions and classified 
their elements. 
Plato stands for Idealism. 
Aristotle, for Realism. 

The method of Plato was synthetic ; that of 
Aristotle was analytic. "The intellect of Plato 
was a garden of Paradise ; that of Aristotle a 
granite palace. Aristotle's wit was like a sharp 
knife and a weighty hammer; Plato's like a roll- 
ing river and a shining ocean. The one bristled 
with all curious knowledge, the other blossomed 
with all lofty speculation ; Aristotle analyzed all 
things great and small; Plato harmonized all 
things beautiful and grand." 
Plato speaks of Purgatory, Heaven and Hell. 
Aristotle mentions none of these and it does not 
appear that he believed in a conscious continuity 
of life after the dissolution of this body. 
Plato glorified Reason above all our attributes 
and personified it as "the Logos." 

Aristotle builds his system of ethics on reason 
and extols it above all other characteristics of 
man. "Man is a social animal; the normal con- 
ception of man is of man in a state of civilization, 
and this implies the conception of a state." 
What is the chief good? "The chief end of any 



176 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

creature is to find his place in the world; where 
he will find joy in living and doing." We must 
discern the differentiating elements in the human 
creature. "The differentiating element in birds 
is wings ; in fish, fins ; in worms, rings ; in man, 
Reason; hence it is from nature that we learn 
that man is above all a reasoning animal and 
that he should live by employing this faculty. 
Therefore a life lived according to reason will 
attain the chief good." From this it appears 
that Aristotle finds what is the duty of man by 
first discovering the chief and distinctive faculty 
in man and bids us follow that, for in doing so, 
we but fulfill our destiny, which nature has pre- 
scribed to man and in this we attain the "chief 
good." 

"A right action is an action according to the 
constitution of things ; a wrong action is an ac- 
tion in contravention of the constitution of 
things." Aristotle laid down but one maxim, 
but that one is eminently practical and full of 
common sense: "Virtue, or right conduct is gen- 
erally found in the mean between two extremes." 
Or as applied to propositions : "Truth is to be 
found midway between the extremes of a given 
contention." 

Solomon appears to have anticipated this 
aphorism of Aristotle: 

"Be not righteous overmuch, neither make thy- 
self overwise; why shouldst thou destroy thy- 
self? Be not overmuch wicked, neither be thou 



THE SCHOOLS OF GREECE 177 

foolish; why shouldst thou die before thy time?" 
Courage is thus found to be a mean between 
cowardice and rashness, and in the case of truth, 
even after it has been found by pursuing it, after 
the formula given, the rule will also apply to the 
quantit}' of truth which society can receive and 
assimilate. 

"A surplus of truth," says a disciple of 
Aristotle, "is sure to make society uncomfortable 
and a deluge of it makes it impossible. Hence 
in the conduct of life the great importance of 
not speaking too much truth lest we frighten 
people, and not speaking too little lest we learn 
altogether to live upon lies." 

Self esteem is a mean between self glorification 
and self debasement. "The unhealthy condition 
of body and soul," says an expositor of Aristotle, 
"is chiefly indicated by some deficiency or ex- 
cess," and "Virtue is a medium, a balance, a 
proportion, a symmetry, a harmony, a nice ad- 
justment of the forces of each part in reference 
to the calculated action of the whole." Not only 
in human affairs is this law operative, but in the 
physical universe as well. The orbit of a planet 
is but the mean determined by the operation of 
two opposing forces. In chemistry, the com- 
pound is the result of two, or more, opposing 
properties, having affinity for one another, los- 
ing their identity and characteristics in union. 
The mean is discerned in numbers and in mathe- 
matics, also it is seen in the course of values on 



178 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

the world's exchanges; in commerce, when com- 
modities are extremely high, sell; when abnor- 
mally cheap, buy. In government, when condi- 
tions have become insupportable; when the great- 
est good for the greatest number has long been 
ignored, and the righteous indignation of de- 
mocracy bursts forth in revolution ; when the hor- 
rors of civil war are upon us, — then let us pause, 
for we shall find peace and equity midway between 
the extremes of oppression and revolution. And 
so it is as Aristotle has well said: "We go to war 
that me may have peace." 

Aristotle approaches the consideration of the 
nature of the soul cautiously. "It will be neces- 
sary in discussing the soul," he says, "to define 
which of the categories it belongs to, whether it 
is potentiality or actuality." As he affirms im- 
mortality of the "Active Reason" and the "Active 
Mind," we may infer, I think, that these quali- 
ties, or attributes, are synonymous with the soul. 
Peripateticism affirms that "the soul is the har- 
mony of the body," that its functions are "modes 
of motion" and that, "reason and the faculties 
of sense-perception are at one." As Aristotle 
everywhere affirms Reason and Matter, Averroes 
interprets him as having believed that man is 
compounded of "Reason and Matter" (soul and 
body) and that as the body of man is gathered 
from the vast store of matter in nature and its 
final restoration made to that store, so is the 
emanation of the soul of man ("the Active Rea- 



THE SCHOOLS OF GREECE 179 

son") from the Universal Intellect, finally reab- 
sorbed by the Universal Intellect or Deity. 

In an immortality of this character, individ- 
uality and self-consciousness are lost. There is 
here, however, an ennobling thought and an in- 
spiring conception. It supports the assumption 
that we are, in something more than a figurative 
sense, and to a degree at least, — the Sons of 
God. There is no more specific assumption of 
the immortality of the soul than this. He keeps 
far from anything which might be termed 
"faith." He speaks of the gods frequently, but 
never with warmth or with sentiments of love and 
affection ; with him devotion is the child of emo- 
tional life. As to the formation of the world, he 
would attribute it to the operation of natural 
forces, rather than to the effort of a transcendent 
Deity. 

Aristotle believed in learning by doing. He 
approaches an inquiry into the subject of virtue 
in this manner: "We will now inquire into the 
nature of virtue, not only that we may come to 
know what virtue is, but rather that we may be 
virtuous," and he argues that "excellence grows 
by the contemplation of high ideals." On 
the subject of "Happiness" as the end of 
human action, this from the "Nicomachean 
Ethics": . . . "If happiness be an energy 
according to virtue, it is reasonable to suppose 
that it is according to the best virtue; and this 
must be the virtue of the best part of man. 



180 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

Whether, then, this best part be the intellect, or 
something else — which is thought naturally to 
bear rule and to govern, and to possess ideas 
upon honorable and divine subjects, or whether it 
is itself divine, or the most divine of any prop- 
erty which we possess ; the energy of this part 
according to its proper virtue must be perfect 
happiness ; and that this energy is contempla- 
tive has been stated. This also would seem to 
agree with what was said before, and with the 
truth; for this energy is the noblest, since the 
intellect is the noblest thing within us, and of 
subjects of knowledge, those are noblest with 
which the intellect is conversant. . . . 

"We think also that pleasure must be united 
to happiness ; but of all the energies according 
to virtue, that according to wisdom is confessedly 
the most pleasant; at any rate wisdom seems to 
contain pleasures worthy of admiration, both in 
point of purity and stability ; and it is reasonable 
to suppose that this mode of life should be pleas- 
anter to those who know it than to those who are 
only seeking it." 

From the "Politics": . . . "Let us there- 
fore be well agreed that so much of happiness 
falls to the lot of every one as he possesses of 
virtue and wisdom, and in proportion as he acts 
according to their dictates. For good fortune 
is something of necessity different from 1 happiness, 
as every external good of the soul is produced 
by chance or by fortune; but it is not from for- 



THE SCHOOLS OF GREECE 181 

tune that anyone is just or wise. Hence it fol- 
lows, as established by the same reasoning, that 
the state which is best, and acts best, will be 
happy ; for no one can fare well who actsi not well ; 
nor can the actions of either man or city be 
praiseworthy without virtue and wisdom. For 
valor, justice and wisdom have in a state the same 
force and form as in individuals ; and it is only 
as he shares in these virtues that each man is 
said to be just, wise, and prudent. 

"If, then, of all courses of action which are 
according to the virtues, those which have to do 
with politics and war excel in beauty and great- 
ness ; and these have no leisure, and aim at some 
end, and are not chosen for their own sakes ; but 
the energy of the intellect is thought to be supe- 
rior in intensity, because it is thought to be con- 
templative; and to aim at no end beyond itself, 
and to have a pleasure properly belonging to it; 
and if this increases the energy; and if self-suffi- 
ciency, and leisure, and freedom from cares (as 
far as anything human can be free) and every- 
thing which is attributed to the happy man, evi- 
dently exist in this energy ; then this must be the 
perfect happiness of man, when it attains the end 
of life complete ; for nothing is incomplete of 
those things which belong to happiness. 

"But such a life would be better than man 
could attain to; for he would live thus, not so 
far forth as he is man, but as there is in him 
something divine. But so far as this divine part 



182 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

surpasses the whole compound nature, so far does 
its energy surpass the energy which is according 
to all other virtue. If, then, the intellect be 
divine when compared with man, the life also, 
which is in obedience to that, will be divine when 
compared with human life. But a man ought not 
to entertain human thoughts, as some would ad- 
vise, because he is human, nor mortal thoughts, 
because he is mortal; but as far as it is possible 
he should make himself immortal, and do every- 
thing with a view to living in accordance with the 
best principles in him ; although it be small in 
size yet in power and value it is far more ex- 
cellent than all. Besides this would seem to be 
each man's "self," if it really is the ruling and 
the better part. It would be absurd, therefore, 
if a man were to choose not his own life, but the 
life of some other thing. And what was said be- 
fore will apply now; for that which peculiarly 
belongs to each by nature is best and most pleas- 
ant to every one; and consequently to man, the 
life according to intellect is most pleasant, if in- 
tellect especially constitutes man. This life, 
therefore, is the most happy." 

This is the morality and the religion of one 
whom Christians are pleased to call "a pagan 
philosopher." 

Enough has been shown to disclose the char- 
acter of the system of Ethics and Logic developed 
by Aristotle, but a word remains to be said of the 
"Nominalism" of Plato, and we will close our 



THE SCHOOLS OF GREECE 183 

study of the doctrines of the Athenian Phi- 
losophers. Plato reduced all propositions, whether 
in the realm of morals, metaphysics, or in the 
domain of matter, to an Idea. This, in his sys- 
tem, is the ultimate; irreducible and indivisible 
finality. In this he went much farther than 
Democritus, a contemporary, who reduced the 
physical universe to molecules and then to atoms 
and affirmed of these, weight and extension, life 
and motion. Plato stands for Nominalism or 
Idealism; Aristotle for Realism. 

There are but two other schools or systems of 
Ethics of distinctive character, — Christianity and 
Utilitarianism. In the former, Christian virtue 
is associated with piety and is available to the 
unlearned and the well-informed alike. The 
"virtue" of Socrates, of Plato and of Aristotle, 
is rather the product of logic and not easily or 
fully discerned by the ignorant and unthinking 
masses, — a class which should be lost in the evolu- 
tion of an advanced civilization and a deserving 
and self-conscious democracy. Ethics in the 
Athenian schools, discloses the proper motive be- 
hind human action, but promises no remission of 
sins on confession for violation of the laws of 
nature. Nature rewards the man who is governed 
by reason and punishes the man who has violated 
nature's laws. There is no escape from such 
penalties ; no external power can cleanse one who 
has persistently wallowed in filth. Away with 
the doctrine urged by Cardinal Bossuet in his 
funeral oration over the body of Conde, that 



184* PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

"there is a penitence as glorious as innocence it- 
self." It's false; that which a man sows he shall 
likewise reap. This is the law of nature, than 
which no higher law can be known and appre- 
hended. Let us not deceive ourselves. Peripateti- 
cism is right; there is no atonement for violated 
law, in nature or in morals, but to suffer the 
resultant effects of that violation. 

In the categories of Christian Ethics, the 
crowning postulate is this: — that we reach the 
Deity through the medium of prayer. It is not 
a new proposition; it was not born with Chris- 
tianity. Prayer is an attitude; a fervent desire 
uttered; an expectancy charged with energy. 
Its effects are psychological. It is the strongest 
form of auto-suggestion. We are transformed 
in body and mind, measurably with the intensity 
of our feelings, into the image of the object of 
our worship. The effectiveness of prayer de- 
pends upon the attitude of the subject rather 
than the object; therefore the benefits and re- 
sults appear to be subjective rather than objec- 
tive, but these benefits are, however, none the less 
helpful. 

Christian Ethics lead directly and powerfully 
to Asceticism. This was recognized and admitted 
and this mode of life was generally adopted by 
the early Christians. Many of the austere and 
consecrated bishops of the Church, in the first 
three centuries, went so far in this direction as 
to make themselves eunuchs for Christ's sake. 



THE SCHOOLS OF GREECE 185 

Asceticism is recognized as a means to Christian 
perfection and favored by the Greek and Roman 
Catholic Churches to our day, and it has with- 
stood the adverse forces of western civilization 
with a steadfast determination that is marvelous. 
However, those of us who are Christian one day 
in seven, need not fear, nor heed, the call of the 
monastery. This characteristic of Christian 
Ethics, as shown in its precepts, deters men from 
embracing Christianity, for they recognize that 
its precepts, while admirable as ideals, yet lack 
objective practicability. The intensely practical 
man of large affairs and of great responsibility 
will be influenced and drawn more by the doctrines 
of Peripateticism than by the precepts of Chris- 
tianity and he will be disposed to follow Aristotle 
rather than Jesus. 

We are sometimes led to recognize and under- 
stand the salient points contained in a given 
proposition by considering their opposites, and 
for this purpose it is well to consider a few pre- 
cepts of Utilitarianism. This more modern 
school, led by John Stuart Mill, holds that utility 
is the test of morality. 

Utilitarianism is externalism. It is directly 
opposed to the idealism of Plato and the asceti- 
cism of Christianity. The moral virtues of the 
inner soul, or "active intellect," or "active rea- 
son," are not innate, but are rather institu- 
tional. 

Conscience is molded on external authority 



186 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

and is not the unerring monitor affirmed by Chris- 
tianity. Morality is derived from external ex- 
perience. It is not derived from nature, but is 
acquired. What is regarded as morality by one 
people, in a given state, may not be morality with 
another people, in another state. From the 
stand-point of metaphysics Utilitarianism affirms 
that our ideas proceed from sensation and are 
not innate. This is Epicureanism. Very im- 
portant conclusions may be deduced from these 
propositions but we will not follow them. 

It has been said facetiously, that the ancients 
stole all our ideas and knowledge. In the realm 
of the moral and religious sciences this is to a 
great extent true. In the preceding pages I have 
considered the several systems which comprise 
the warp and woof of ethical science. All that 
is of modern growth harks back to Athens, where 
the foundation principles were thought out, lived 
and established. 

One system, however, of modern growth and of 
distinctive character is worthy of notice, and I 
shall digress from the tenor of my subject, for a 
moment briefly to consider it. Henry George 
of San Francisco conceived a system of political 
economy and ethics based on the land question. 
In this, George denies the right of individual 
ownership of the land. His system is well de- 
veloped and set out in his first book, an admirable 
work, titled "Progress and Poverty," a work that 
has powerfully influenced economists and moral- 



THE SCHOOLS OF GREECE 187 

ists in recent years, and which shall some day 
work a revolution in governments that will be 
radical to the last degree, but which, when this 
revolution shall have been accomplished, will do 
much to bring to men that equality of op- 
portunity, of fortune and enjoyment which social 
democracy holds to be the ideal condition. 

The aim of this system is to make the means 
of production open to all, that all and each may 
have the opportunity and the benefits now en- 
joyed by comparatively few to the exclusion of 
the many. It is affirmed by this school that the 
land is the inheritance of the whole race, and, as 
the air and the waters, should be free to all, sub- 
ject to a rental to be paid the government, which 
rental shall be the sole taxation imposed on the 
citizens, or the people, for the support of govern- 
ment. No other barrier shall prevent the free 
use and occupation of the land; this right of oc- 
cupation shall be so well guarded that it may de- 
scend to posterity from generation to generation 
and all improvements shall be free from taxation 
and remain the property of those who make them, 
in perpetuity, subject to renewal of leases of the 
land from decade to decade. 

This question is appropriately raised: what in- 
fluences or conditions create land values? There 
is but one answer, population. The northeast 
corner of Broadway and Wall Street in the city 
of New York, for example, on which the First 
National Bank of that city is located, is probably 



188 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

the most valuable piece of land on the western 
hemisphere. Why is this lot or plot so valuable? 
Because 200,000 people pass that corner and 
turn down Wall Street and return by it daily, 
and it thus has become one of the most accessible 
business locations in America. If 200,000 people 
passing that location daily give the almost in- 
credible value to that property which it pos- 
sesses, why should not these who contribute to 
this value, or impart it, participate in it? The 
owners have done little or nothing to create this 
enormous value. Why should they possess it all? 
Growing population brings to the community, or 
municipality, increasing land values, higher rents, 
increased cost of living, ownership of the land by 
the few, dispossession of the many, — conditions 
that are undemocratic and unjust. Poverty, and 
the ignorance, immorality and crime which come 
from poverty, will measurably disappear when we 
shall have equal opportunity in the use of land 
and to the means of production that are based on 
land. 

This proposition was not first voiced by Henry 
George, though he was not, probably, aware that 
another had preceded him. In 1762 Jean Jaques 
Rousseau, a Frenchman, then residing at Geneva, 
wrote a little book titled "The Social Contract" 
which palpitates with social energy from cover 
to cover. This book was written twenty-seven 
years before the French Revolution and was an 
instigating and supporting power behind that 



THE SCHOOLS OF GREECE 189 

great revolution, — a revolution which broke down 
one of the most iniquitous and unjust govern- 
ments that Europe had witnessed; which brought 
an end to the rule of the Capets, who had 
governed, robbed and oppressed France for nine 
centuries ; which led Louis XVI. and Marie An- 
toinette to the Guillotine and transformed the 
government of tyrants into a Republic. 

It was from this little book that Thomas 
Jefferson drew much of the splendid social doc- 
trine contained in our Declaration of Independ- 
ence, — "that all men are born free and 
equal"; . . . "that governments derive their 
just powers from the consent of the governed." 
These propositions were affirmed by Rousseau, in 
one form or another, fourteen years before the 
American Revolution and this work of Rousseau 
was known to Jefferson prior to 1776, and he 
showed familiarity with it when he was minister 
to France in 1784-1786. 

Rousseau touches the subject of individual 
ownership of the land in this brisk, energetic and 
characteristic manner: "The first man, who, hav- 
ing enclosed a plot of ground, proceeded to say, 
'This belongs to me,' and found other men simple 
enough to believe him, was the real founder of 
civil society. What crimes, what wars, what 
murders, what miseries and what horrors' he would 
have saved humanity who, grabbing up the posts, 
or filling up the ditch, would have cried out to 
his fellow men, 'Do not listen to this impostor, you 



190 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

are lost if you forget that the fruits are to all, 
and that the land belongs to no one.' " 9 

Had this proposition been incorporated in our 
Declaration of Independence in 1776, and later 
incorporated in the Constitution, it would have 
wrought most important and beneficient conditions 
in our country. We would not now be face to 
face with monstrous wealth centralized in the pos- 
session of a few, and on the other hand abject 
poverty and destitution general and widely 
diffused. The crimes of the Bowery and the dis- 
tress of the Ghetto could not have become char- 
acteristic conditions of our great cities. 

Thomas Jefferson was alive to this question in 
his day of usefulness and power and advocated 
the proposition that the ultimate title to the land 
should be retained by the government, and the 
right of use and occupation only should be trans- 
ferred to the individual or citizen. Possibly his 
long and bitter fight in the Virginia Legislature, 
in 1776, for the repeal of the laws of entail and 
abolition of primogeniture, — a relic of feudalism, 
which alienated from him many friends and made 
powerful enemies of them — as in case of the 

» "Le premier qui ayant enclos un terrain s'avisa de 
dire: 'Ceci est a moi,' et trouva des gens assez simples 
pour le croire, fut le vrai fondateur de la societe civile. 
Que de crimes, de guerres, de meurtres, que de miseres et 
d'horreurs n'eut point epargnes au genre humain celui qui, 
arrachant les pieux ou comblant le foss6, eut cri6 a ses 
semblables: 'Gardez-vous d'ecouter cet imposteur; Vous 
etes perdus si vous oubliez que les fruit sont a tous, et 
que la terre n'est a personnel " 



THE SCHOOLS OF GREECE 191 

Randolphs, — may have deterred him from urg- 
ing this radical measure at that time. 

Legislation in a Republic or Democracy should 
favor the diffusion of wealth, not its concentra- 
tion. Ours is unquestionably a representative 
form of government, but centralized wealth, the 
special interests and tariff beneficiaries have been 
represented better than, and rather to the ex- 
clusion of, the people generally, for nearly fifty 
years. 

At this late day, in our country, we can not 
right the wrong growing out of the land ques- 
tion, due to our early neglect. We shall 1 see these 
benefits embraced and enjoyed by other states and 
countries. We can now only hope to approach 
the realization of this system by the medium of 
discriminating and discriminative taxation and 
even this may prove to be unpopular if not im- 
practicable. 

Having considered the character and the work 
of the several schools of Greece we are justified 
in believing and affirming that, if these schools 
had not been suppressed by royal edict in the in- 
terest of Christianity, they would by now have 
given the world all that is best in morals and re- 
ligion. That phase of worship which is based 
wholly on the emotions and which characterizes 
much that is foremost in Christianity, would not 
have been developed; that predominating in- 
fluence based upon, and developed from, supersti- 



192 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

tion and belief in miracles, would have been passed 
by; while all that could have been drawn from 
reason and virtuous action would have been estab- 
lished, and all that could have been affirmed of 
Deity, coming as legitimate deductions from 
logic, and from the revelations of the sciences, 
would have been ours to a greater extent, and 
to a larger degree, than now. 

Creasy has portrayed to us in his work, "Fif- 
teen Decisive Battles of the World," how a num- 
ber of great battles of history have sealed the 
fate of governments and peoples and changed the 
boundary lines of nations. When we consider the 
issues that were involved at Marathon, at Arbela, 
at Pharsalia, at Poictiers and at Waterloo, and 
what would have followed had the results of these 
conflicts been reversed ; we may in this manner con- 
sider and estimate what we have lost, or gained, 
in the moral world by the conflicts which were 
waged between Christianity and the numerous 
schools of ethics and religion of ancient Greece. 

We may perhaps conclude that as the arbitra- 
ment of the sword, on the field of battle, has not 
always been in accord with the best interests of 
humanity, so the conflicts in the moral and re- 
ligious world have not in all cases ended happily 
and for the best interests of mankind. The world 
can never pay the debt it owes to the Athenian 
scholars for their work in the interest of, and 
for the benefit of humanity. Shakespeare makes 
Marc Anthony say, while bending over the dead 



THE SCHOOLS OF GREECE 193 

body of Caesar: "Thou art the ruins of the noblest 
man, that ever lived, in the tide of times." This 
is extravagant praise to be given a tyrant who 
had turned the army of a Republic against the 
Republic, and, on the field at Pharsalia, over- 
turned the Republic and created the Empire. 
Four centuries before Caesar, there lived at 
Athens a group of scholars and statesmen — 
Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Democritus and De- 
mosthenes — who gave the world conceptions of 
life, systems of morals, duties of citizenship, and 
a store of knowledge more abundant, more useful 
and more glorious ; and of whom it might with 
greater propriety be said, and of whom it is more 
profoundly true: "These are the greatest men, 
that ever lived, in the tide of times." 



PARALLELS; EARLY BELIEFS; MIRACU- 
LOUS CONCEPTIONS 

SUPERNATURAL OCCURRENCES AND 
PARALLELS 

It is contrary to the judgment and experience 
of our age, and opposed to the attitude and bent 
of our western civilization, to entertain belief in 
supernatural occurrences, and as the decades go 
by we shall come to a period wherein disbelief in 
miracles and supernatural occurrences will become 
universal. 

The supernatural occurrences related in the 
old and new scriptures have their parallels in 
Greek, Egyptian and Assyrian mythology. 
Poseidon, an early Greek divinity, had smote the 
rock and brought forth water, and Moses smote 
the rock in Horeb and water came forth. 

Jesus was crucified on March 25th, A. D. 29. 
Of the miraculous occurrences said to have fol- 
lowed that event, of the earthquake and eclipse of 
the sun, accredited historians of that time make 
no mention. 

St. Matthew's account: "Now from the sixth 
hour there was darkness over all the land until the 
ninth hour, . . . and behold the veil of the 
temple was rent in twain from the top to the bot- 

194 



PARALLELS 195 

torn ; and the earth did quake and the rocks rent ; 
and the graves were opened; and many bodies of 
the saints which slept arose," etc. 

St. Mark's account: "And when the sixth 
hour was come there was darkness over the whole 
land until the ninth hour, . . . and the veil 
in the temple was rent in twain from the top to 
the bottom." 

St. Luke's account: "And it was about the 
sixth hour and there was a darkness over all the 
earth until the ninth hour, and the sun was 
darkened, the veil in the temple was rent in the 
midst." 

The three Synoptists agree in their account of 
two supernatural occurrences, while St. Matthew 
alone relates two other and additional occurrences. 

Now, Caesar was assassinated by the conspira- 
tors (I prefer to call them patriots) on March 
15th, B. C. 44, or seventy-three years and some 
ten days earlier than the day of the crucifixion of 
Jesus. Let us consider the supernatural occur- 
rences said to have taken place at that time. 

Says the historian, Pliny : "The 1 sun was pale 
and without splendor for the greater part of 
the year." 

Plutarch says: "As Csesar was sacrificing, 
the victim's heart was missing, a very bad omen, 
because no living creature can live without a 
heart. . . . The most singular preternatural 
appearances (following his death) were the great 
comet which shone very bright for seven nights 



196 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

and then disappeared ; and the dimness of the sun 
whose orb continued pale and dull for the whole 
of that year, never showing its ordinary radiance 
at its rising and giving but a weak and feeble 
heat." 

We have in Josephus a transcript of a letter 
from "Marcus Antonius, Imperator, to Hyr- 
canus the High Priest," in which Marc 
says : "But we have taken vengeance on 

those (the conspirators) who have been the au- 
thors of great injustice towards men and of great 
wickedness towards the gods ; for the sake of 
which, we suppose it was, that the sun turned 
away his light from us, as unwilling to view the 
horrid crime they were guilty of in the case 
(death) of Caesar." 

Virgil says: 
"Such lightnings never fired the unclouded air 
Nor Comets trailed so oft their blazing hair, 
For this in equal arms Phillippi viewed 
Rome's kindred bands again in gore imbrued." 

By some, these accounts are received with con- 
fidence, but to my mind they are not to be be- 
lieved. They sprung from the imagination of 
men whose minds were steeped in superstition. 
However, the authors, doubtless, had no thought 
of deceiving posterity. 

The same God under different names 

When Demetrius was collecting books and liter- 



PARALLELS 197 

ary works for the Alexandrian library, in the 
reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, B. C. 265, and 
after he had secured "twenty times ten thousand 
books," it was his wish to secure the laws (scrip- 
tures) of the Jews and have them translated into 
the Greek. And when Aristius was pleading with 
the king to set free his Jewish captives as a pre- 
liminary to the proposed work of translating the 
Jewish scriptures, he urged this: "Because the 
God who supporteth thy kingdom, was the author 
of their laws as I have learned by particular in- 
quiry, for both, these people and we also worship 
the same God, the framer of all things. We call 
him, and that truly, by the name of Zeus or Jupi- 
ter." And so when the seventy learned Jews had 
come to Alexandria and had translated the Bible 
into Greek, it was discovered and affirmed by the 
scholars of Alexandria, that Jehovah of the Jews, 
Zeus of the Greeks and Jupiter of the Romans 
were but different names for the same God. 

Sejanus, a contemporary of Jesus, had long 
been the confidant and friend of Emperor Tibe- 
rius. He had compassed the death of Agrippina 
— grand-daughter of the deified Augustus — and 
her two sons ; he had, moreover, poisoned Drussus, 
the emperor's son and heir to the throne, all with 
the acquiescence and connivance of the unspeak- 
able Tiberius. Laudation that the people be- 
stowed on Sejanus, as the friend and adviser of 
the emperor, was by him esteemed to be his due 



198 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

and he became ambitious to possess imperial and 
divine honors. Tiberius became suspicious of 
Sejanus, turned against him and brought about 
his death. 

Three historians, Tacitus and Juvenal in the 
first century and Dio Cassius in the second, men- 
tion a number of supernatural occurrences 
arising immediately before the fall and execution 
of Sejanus. Says Dio Cassius: "Ravens alighted 
on his head and flapped their wings in his face as 
he went to sacrifice. An eruption of smoke burst 
forth from one of his bronze statues in the temple, 
and the statue of Fortuna was observed to turn 
on her heel, averting her face, as he passed by, — 
and Sejanus began to be afraid." 

Two Sacrifices Made to the Gods 

From the Book of Judges, Chapter XI. — 
Jephthah, one of the judges of Israel, before be- 
ginning his campaign against the Ammonites, a 
related people, made a vow to his god, Jehovah, 
that if he would give him victory (and do it first) 
he would make a "burnt offering" unto him. — 
"Then the spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah 
and he vowed a vow unto the Lord and said, 'if 
thou shalt without fail deliver the Children of 
Ammon into my hands, then it shall be, that what- 
soever cometh forth from the doors of my house 
to meet me, when I return in peace from the 
Children of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord's, 
and I will offer it up for a burnt offering.' . . . 



PARALLELS 199 

And after the slaughter of the Ammonites was 
accomplished, Jephthah came to Mezpeh unto his 
house, and behold his daughter came out to meet 
him with timbrels and with dances ; and she was 
his only child." 

At the appointed hour, two months later, 
Jephthah sacrificed his daughter in fulfillment of 
his vow made "when the spirit of the Lord was 
upon him." And so Jehovah gave Jephthah the 
coveted victory, and Jephthah gave Jehovah his 
daughter's blood and the transaction was closed. 

King Agamemnon's fleet lies motionless in the 
harbor at Aulis and his soldiers are smitten with 
a foul and fatal disease. He should be on his way 
to the siege of Troy. In his trouble and humility 
he invokes the aid of the gods but receives no en- 
couragement. The priest of the goddess Artemis 
approaches the king and informs him that the 
goddess is offended and commands him to give his 
daughter, Iphigeneia, to be sacrificed for a 
propitiation, — for if mortals forget their obliga- 
tions to the gods and become vain in their power 
and prosperity shall they not pay the price? 
What man is there in all the world who hath great 
riches, great power or great renown who hath 
not made a proportionate sacrifice? 

Agamemnon seeks his daughter and pours out 
his grief. — "O thou fairest pledge of a divine and 
burning love! O sweet fruit of a joy such as thy 
mother, Clytaemnestra, alone can give ! The 



200 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

gods demand thy life ere they vouchsafe victory 
to our arms on the field at Ilium. O Iphigeneia, 
canst thou give up thy sweet young life that the 
Greeks may be saved from defeat and thy father 
from ruin? Let us go to yonder grove and upon 
that smoking altar there beneath the plane-tree, 
Calchas — the priest, will let thy blood while I call 
the gods to witness the extremity of my grief 
and the greatness of my sacrifice." 

And so, when the sun was set, Iphigeneia lay 
cold in death, her blood congealing on the altar, 
mute testimony to the bloody but pious supersti- 
tion of her time. 

Two opinions voiced about A. D. 310. 

ATHANASIUS 

"Away with the story of creation given to 
Greeks and barbarians by Hesiod! It is false! 
Jehovah created the world, for it is written in 
the holy scriptures : 'In the beginning God created 
the heavens and the earth.' " 
hierocles 

"The tradition of the Greeks has led men to 
consider the work of creation. The contempla- 
tion of this sublime subject has contributed much 
to the knowledge and piety of the Greeks, for men 
become great and good by contemplating great 
things. The Jews have no knowledge of creation 
above that we possess. Strabo, Pliny, Tacitus 
and Apuleius believed Moses to have been a 
sorcerer, — taught the art at Heliopolis." 



PARALLELS 201 

ATHANASIUS 

"Impossible ! The garden of the Persian kings 
is not Paradise ! The Garden of the Hesperides 
and Elysian-fields are not Eden! These are but 
vain creations of the idolatrous Greeks. We 
know the reality 1 of Eden for hath not Moses writ- 
ten: 'And the Lord God planted a garden east- 
ward in Eden ?' " 

HIEROCLES 

"We find delight in dwelling upon the sensuous 
beauty of the shaded and perfumed groves of a 
Persian paradise, and in our imagination we 
cling to the charms of the garden of the Hesper- 
ides 10 and to the beauty of the Elysian-fields. 

10 The lyric poet, Pindar, in his Second Ode, written B. C. 
480, locates the garden of the Hesperides west of the 
"Pillars of Hercules."— 

"The islands of the blest they say, 
The islands of the blest, 
Are peaceful and happy by night and day, 
Far away in the glorious West. 

"They need not the moon in that land of delight, 
They need not the pale, pale star; 
The sun he is bright by day and night, 
Where the souls of the blessed are. 

! 
"They till not the ground, they plow not the wave, 
They labor not — never! O never! 
Not a tear do they shed, not a sigh do they heave. 
They are happy for ever and ever. 

"Soft is the breeze, like the evening one 
When the sun hath gone to his rest; 



202 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

We live and create in our imagination. The 
Greek has art in his soul, he thinks in form and 
feature. To him, paradise, the garden of the 
Hesperides and the Elysian-fields are realities. 
The Eden of the Jews is no more real." 

ATHANASIUS 

"Break the images ! It was Phidias who 
created Zeus ! Jehovah was not made by human 
hands! He is the creator, not the created!" 

HIEROCLES 

"Idealism has created a Supreme God and as- 
cribed to Him attributes that harmonize with the 
Idea. The Greeks have conceived this Being un- 
der the name of Zeus. The Jews, a blood-thirsty 
people, created their Jehovah with a thirst for 
blood, burnt offerings and sacrifices." 

ATHANASIUS 

"Tradition is a liar ! The story of the Deucal- 
ian deluge and destruction of the human family, 
save three souls, is monstrous ! It is but a Greek 
superstition! There was but one deluge, Moses 
has described it: 'And behold, I, even I, do bring 
a flood of water upon the earth, to destroy all 

And the sky is pure, and the clouds there are none, 
In the islands of the blest. 

"The deep clear sea, in its mazy bed, 
Doth garlands of gems unfold; 
Not a tree but it blazes with crowns for the dead, 
Even flowers of living gold." 



PARALLELS 

flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under 
heaven, and everything that is in the earth shall 
die.' " 

HIEROCLES 

"The story of the Deucalian deluge is a very old 
one. We can not, indeed, affirm that there was 
such a flood and that the human family well nigh 
perished in it. Of the same character and dark 
antiquity is the narrative of the deluge of Noah. 
Let us hope that the human family never suffered 
such cruel calamities as these traditions imply." 

ATHANASIUS 

"Preposterous ! How can the Greeks prove 
that their Hades is a place for the souls of men? 
Who is Minos that shall judge the dead and mete 
out rewards and punishments? We know of but 
one judgment— the last and eternal judgment of 
the universe. Is it not written that Jesus shall 
descend and judge the quick and the dead?" 

HIEROCLES 

"Hope is a strong faculty in the human mind, 
this led man to speculate on a future state, in time 
his speculations became belief. The sense of jus- 
tice in him pictured a possible tribunal and judg- 
ments of rewards and punishments. The Jews 
created Jehovah, Heaven and Hell for the Jews. 
The Greeks in like manner provided an Elysium 
and Hades. Our philosophers may banish these 
creations; already they deny their reality." 



204 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

ATHANASIUS 

"Down with the Demi-gods ! Away with 
Hercules, Dionysus, Agamemnos and the rest of 
them! These are but vain creations of supersti- 
tious people. Who can believe that a progeny 
has come from a union of gods with women!" 

HIEROCLES 

"Men of valor and superior force have in all 
ages received the admiration of their fellow men. 
Many who were more abundantly endowed with 
such attributes and blessed by good fortune have 
been held to have descended from the gods. Now, 
however, the stature of the people is increasing, 
that of the heroes diminishing. The Greeks and 
Romans formerly possessed this weakness. Por- 
phyry says substantially, that Gentile Greeks 
wrote the sacred books of the Christians and as- 
cribed to Jesus such manner of birth and such at- 
tributes as we have given to Hercules, and he 
questioned the personality and reality of Gabriel 
and the Holy Ghost." 

ATHANASIUS 

"Out with your oracles ! These are base frauds 
— the inventions of priests to deceive credulous 
people !" 

HIEROCLES 

"Jews and Christians have had their prophets. 
Christian bishops at Rome and Alexandria are 
now preaching, from their sacred writings, of the 



PARALLELS 205. 

impending destruction of the world and the Sec- 
ond Coming of Jesus. A century ago these theo- 
logians appealed to the Oracle of Sibyl, as that 
oracle had become Christian." 

ATHANASIUS 

"Sacrilegious and damnable ! The tradition 
and story of the resurrection of Alceste is false!" 

HIEROCLES 

"The story of Alceste is venerable. Human 
love was never more tenderly and deeply expressed 
than in this charming story to which our Euripi- 
des gave the touch of immortality. It was the 
tender emotion of a glorious and righteous pity 
that moved Hercules to recall to life the lovable 
and adorable Alceste and give her back to the em- 
braces of her husband. The story is fragrant 
with the flower and fruitage of unselfish love, it 
has the highest charm which the world has thus 
far expressed in story and song. Beside this, the 
narrative of the resurrection of Lazarus is void 
of beauty, though not without interest." 

Mythology is still in the making. Gregory of 
Tours affirmed that the seven sleepers of Ephesus 
were miraculously preserved from death and dis- 
solution and might be seen in his day. We may 
ask: Who was Pope Joan? Who Presbyter Jo- 
hannes? Who William Tell? Who were Elf and 
Fairy? And the century will come in which the 
child shall ask its preceptor the question: — Who 
was Uncle Sam? 



206 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

EARLY BELIEFS 

Life is a comedy to those who think, 
A tragedy to those who feel. 

— Horace Walpole. 

There can be no doubt that the Fathers of the 
Church believed implicitly in the resurrection of 
Jesus, and that these good men actually sought 
martyrdom that they might, through such suffer- 
ing, imitate the suffering of Jesus. This fact is 
shown in the proceedings of the Roman courts, 
found in the records of the pro-consuls. The nu- 
merous epistles of Ignatius, too, show this. 

The magistrates of Rome could not comprehend 
the indifference with which Christian violators of 
the laws approached martyrdom. They contem- 
plated the spectacle with amazement and finally 
in utter despair. 

A Christian of Nicomedia had pulled down and 
trampled upon a printed edict of Diocletian; he 
was summarily tried and condemned to the flames. 
While the executioners stood by with torches in 
hand, and while the condemned man was being 
slowly consumed, he steadily pointed the finger of 
scorn at his executioners and continued to laugh 
in their faces until choked by the flames. 11 

Martyrdom, however, does not prove a propo- 

11 This martyr was canonized under the name of St. 
George. His remains were first buried at Nicomedia, later 
removed and interred at Constantinople, finally dug up 
by Crusaders and parceled out for relics. A church in 
Rome claims to possess his skull. 



EARLY BELIEFS 207 

sition to be true. Martyrs simply bet their lives 
that a given proposition is true. There were 
pagan martyrs as well as Christian martyrs ; both 
pagan and Christian could not have been right; 
one or the other was wrong, possibly both were 
mistaken. 

Lucian describes the martyrdom of Peregrin, 
the Cynic, a voluntary martyrdom undergone to 
attest and reflect the valor of the Cynics, and in- 
cidentally to contribute a spectacle to the cele- 
brants of the rites, of the games at Olympia. The 
incident is thus related: "Peregrin demanded 
frankincense to throw upon the fire; being sup- 
plied he first threw it on; then turning to the 
South he exclaimed: 'Gods of my Mother, Gods 
of my Father, receive me with favor,' and with 
these words he leaped into the pyre. There was 
nothing more to be seen, however; the towering 
mass of flames enveloped him completely." 

A belief in demons had been held by Greeks and 
Jews for four centuries prior to the Christian 
era and was firmly held by the theologians of the 
first centuries of our era. These good men be- 
lieved in the activity of demons as fully and as 
firmly, as they did in the resurrection of Jesus, 
and had the laws of Rome forbade the teaching 
of this doctrine, or of exorcising demons, 
the early Fathers of the Church would have suf- 
fered martyrdom for this belief, and for this prac- 
tice, as quickly and as cheerfully as they did for 
their other doctrines, beliefs and rites. 



208 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

If there were demons then, there are demons 
now. Surely there are no demons now, hence 
we may confidently affirm that there were no de- 
mons then. ( 

Demonology passed out of the serious thoughts 
of men along with mythology, with magic, with as- 
trology, with alchemy, and with witchcraft. The 
exorcist, however, was an ordained officer of the 
early Church and the office was long held to be an 
important one. His duty was to cast out demons 
from those who were possessed. This officer is 
said to have been a busy man. 

By observing the attitude of mind of a given 
people at a given age of the world towards the 
ordinary circumstances of life, we may come prop- 
erly to estimate the value of their opinions on 
other and more serious propositions, cults and be- 
liefs. 

The great Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, pupil 
of the Apostle John, and martyr, declaimed 
against the clepsydra, which had been devised 
and developed into a thing of utility and beauty 
in his day, and which was at that time supplanting 
the hour glass as a time keeper. This good bishop 
declared that the clepsydra was an invention of 
the devil, enjoined all Christians against using 
it and preached this prohibition to his credulous 
congregation with the same zeal that he taught 
and proclaimed the early second coming of Jesus. 
Surely a man of such an attitude of mind, how- 
ever good he may be at heart, is not one whom we 



EARLY BELIEFS 209 

would choose to interpret doctrine, or law, or 
knowledge relating to man's place in nature and 
his relation to the Infinite or Supreme Being. 

St. Augustine may be said to have contributed 
more to the interpretation of doctrine and to real 
constructive work in building the foundations of 
Catholic Christianity than any other, yet this 
good man said that, in his day the ground still rose 
and fell over the dead body of the Apostle John, 
interred at Ephesus. 

Barnabas was one of the founders of the Chris- 
tian Church and wrote doctrinal epistles after the 
manner of Paul. These epistles were esteemed 
to be scripture, and were used as such by the early 
Church. Origen and St. Jerome held the epistles 
of Barnabas to be canonical in their day. Now 
observe the character of the reasoning of this 
great theologian on the prophecy of the coming 
of Jesus and of His crucifixion. 

"Understand, therefore, children, these things 
more fully, that Abraham, who was the first who 
brought in circumcision, from Egypt, looking 
forward in the spirit to Jesus, circumcised, having 
received the mystery of three letters. 

"For the Scripture says that Abraham circum- 
cised SI 8 men of his house. But what therefore 
was the mystery that was made known unto him? 

"Mark first the 18, and next the 300. For the 
numeral letters of 10 and 8 are I. H. and these 
denote Jesus. And because the cross was that 
by which we were to find grace ; therefore he adds 



210 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

300 ; the note of which is T, the figure of His cross. 
Wherefore by two letters he signified Jesus, and 
by the third His cross. 

"He who has put the engrafted gift of His doc- 
trine within us, knows that I never taught to any- 
one a more certain truth; but I trust that ye are 
worthy of it." 

Is Barnabas, then, to be a guide to lead us to 
an understanding of the creation of the universe 
and the destiny! of man? 

Clement of Rome, Lactantius and Tertullian 
believed in the Phoenix; that the young bird, on 
the third day, rose from the ashes of the old ; that 
this phenomenon had often been observed at Heli- 
opolis as related by Pliny, Herodotus and Tacitus. 
These great theologians of primitive Christianity 
referred with confidence to this incident in sup- 
port of the gospel account of the resurrection of 
Jesus. Is not the story of the Gadarene lunatic 
and swine of this character? Do we really be- 
lieve the story which Matthew makes Jesus en- 
dorse and say : "For as Jonah was three days and 
three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the son 
of man be three days and three nights in the heart 
of the earth?" This narrative was illustrated by 
sketch on the walls of the catacombs at Rome 
within a century after Jesus is said to have re- 
ferred to it, the marine animal there depicted is a 
mythical monster and in no manner resembles a 
whale. If the animal that swallowed Jonah was a 
myth, the story cannot have been true. 



EARLY BELIEFS 211 

These Greeks had been recently converted from 
nature-worship to Christianity. They had seen 
the statue of Minerva on occasion brandish a 
spear, and the marble statue of Apollo sweat when 
the god was thought to be under great excite- 
ment. They had read how the army of Regulus 
had been put under arms and in the field, in Af- 
rica, against a dragon. 

It was a wonder working age. Miracles were 
cheap and could be seen performed on the steps 
and in the porticos of the temples in Rome, any 
time of day, or night, for a few sesterces, and in 
Athens, on any market day, for a few obols. 

The Pagan temples had their mysteries and 
rites of initiation; so had the Christian churches. 
The voice that spake to Socrates, that' had spoken 
to Moses and the Prophets ; that spake to Bel- 
shazzar by the writing on the wall seen at a 
drunken feast, through the "bottom of his glass 
darkly," that spake to Numa when the founda- 
tions of Rome were laid; that spake at Delphi 
and at Dodona was now, in the early centuries of 
the Church, speaking through the Pontiffs at 
Rome and was soon to speak through Francis of 
Assisi and Joan of Arc. It speaks now through 
super-sensitives and "mediums." 

If some hear voices, which may not be attrib- 
uted to fraud, or to imagination, an explana- 
tion of the phenomenon may be found in the 
science of psychology. With many, thoughts be- 
come audible when they become intense. Possi- 



£12 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

bly a belief in supernatural voices has had vogue 
by reason of the loose manner in which ancient 
people were wont to speak of such matters. 
Pope Eugenius urged the crusade and sent this 
message to the king of France: "The Living 
God hath charged me to tell unto thee that He 
will punish those who shall not have defended Him 
against His enemies." Does anyone now believe 
that the "Living God" spake to Pope Eugenius? 

There were employed at the temple of Serapis 
in Alexandria implements of an unspeakable 
character used in the worship of that god to de- 
ceive the multitude. At the convent of Thurin- 
gia there was a statue of the Virgin Mary and 
infant Jesus so constructed or contrived that it 
would bow in acknowledgment of offerings placed 
upon the altar and turn its back on those who 
came empty handed. 

A prophet had raised to life a dead body, and 
had cured the afflicted. Apollonius of Tyana 
had raised to life the dead body of a woman at 
Rome. Vespasian had touched the afflicted, bid- 
ding them to rise and walk, and they were in- 
stantly made whole, and so it came to pass that 
Jesus and the Apostles raised the dead to life 
and cured the afflicted. Charles X., of France, 
when consecrated at Rheims, touched those who 
were afflicted with scrofula, bidding them be 
healed. Gregory of Tours taught that exorcists 
and relics were more potent to cure disease than 
physicians. Numerous accounts of cases of res- 



EARLY BELIEFS 213 

urrections from the dead and of miraculous cures 
have come down to us from various sources, 
Christian and non-Christian. Modern good 
sense, however, consigns them all to the category 
of unbelievable things, except so far as in the 
case of cures, one mind may have influenced an- 
other through the medium of suggestion. Hume 
says and truly: "Nothing is credible that is 
contrary to experience, or at variance with the 
laws of nature." 

Prayer has been employed since the dawn of 
civilization and before. With the Greeks and 
Romans, prayer to their divinities had these char- 
acteristics : It was intercessory, it was supplica- 
tory, it was propitiatory and gratulatory, and 
this rite has been taken over by Christians and 
Mohammedans without changing its original char- 
acter. 

The Greeks ascribed their victory at Marathon 
to the assistance rendered them by the gods and 
made hecatombs to them for their kindly aid. 
The mythology of the Greeks, Romans, Egyp- 
tians, Assyrians, — and may we not include that of 
the Jews? 12 — everywhere proclaims the efficacy of 
prayer offered to the numerous gods. 

It may be observed here that prayer has ever 
ignored the universal Fatherhood of God. It 
has ever denied by implication at least, the con- 
stancy of nature and of nature's laws. Christian 

i 2 Victor Hugo, — "Eighteen hundred years ago a quarrel 
arose between Pagan mythology and Christian mythology." 



214 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

ideals, voiced in prayer, have been generally good, 
however Christians have employed this rite in sup- 
port of the most selfish interests, from abetting 
murder down to an ordinary petition for rain. 
We may say the same of nature-worship. If the 
supplicant was good, the ideals he voiced were 
good. Socrates, in the woods, by a mountain 
stream, in the early spring, winged his prayer to 
the Sylvan God in these words : — "O dear Pan, 
and ye other gods who frequent this spot, grant 
me, in the first place, to be good within; and as 
for outward circumstances, may they be such as 
harmonize well with, my inward capacities. Grant 
me ever to esteem the wise man as alone the 
worthy man, and wealth as much as I may use 
well." 

SUPERNATURAL OR MIRACULOUS CONCEPTIONS 

B. C. 2448. Genesis VI, 11 : "That the Sons 

of God saw the daughters of men 
that they were fair; and they 
took them wives of all which they 
chose." Thus when the world 
was young we appear to have had 
"Miraculous Conceptions" ga- 
lore. 

B. C. 1913: Hebrews VII, 1 : "For this Mel- 
chizedek, king of Salem, Priest 
of the Most High God, who met 
Abraham returning from the 
slaughter of the kings and 



MIRACULOUS CONCEPTIONS 215 

blessed him. . . . without 
father and without mother, with- 
out descent having neither begin- 
ning of days nor end of life; but 
made like unto the Son of God 
abideth a priest continually." 
This is the most remarkable char- 
acter in history. He is written 
of first in Genesis, then in the 
Psalms and mentioned twice by 
Paul in the Hebrews. That a man 
should be found amongst us hav- 
ing neither father nor mother, es- 
pecially without a mother, is very 
hard to understand ! This was 
long before the incubator was de- 
vised! Paul believed this record 
of Melchizedek and Paul founded 
Gentile Christianity. 

B. C. 1100. Hercules, one of the early divin- 
ities of the Phoenicians and 
Greeks, was the son of the god 
Zeus and his mother was Alc- 
mene of Thebes. Hercules was 
worshiped by the most enlight- 
ened people on the earth for over 
twelve hundred years. No fewer 
than one hundred instances of 
miraculous conceptions of this 
character may be found recorded 
in the "Theogony" of Hesiod, B. 



216 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

C. 850. Among the most note- 
worthy may be mentioned, — Ag- 
amemnon, King of Greece, whose 
mother was a goddess. Aga- 
memnon was long worshiped 
in Sparta as "Zeus Agamemnos." 
There was, too, the renowned 
soldier who fought at Troy, 
Achilles, whose mother was the 
goddess Thetis and his father 
Peleus. And the pious Aeneas, 
son of the Goddess Venus, and 
founder of the Latin Race. 

B. C. 900. Mithra. The birth of Mithra is 

said to have been miraculous. It 
was witnessed and testified to by 
Aryan shepherds of Persia, who 
brought gifts and adored him. 
The incidents of his birth and life 
are mentioned in the Iranian 
Avesta and Hindu Vedas. At 
the end of his mission and work 
he is said to have been transfig- 
ured and translated, disappear- 
ing in a chariot swiftly drawn up- 
ward toward the sun. The wor- 
ship of Mithra continued from 
900 B. C. to A. D. 1500. This 
religion was embraced by Corn- 
modus, Diocletian, Galerius and 
Julian ; became the religion of the 



MIRACULOUS CONCEPTIONS 217 

Roman legions, and by the third 
century A. D. had so completely 
covered the Roman empire that 
"It seemed on the verge of be- 
coming the universal religion." 
It gave way to Manichaeism and 
Christianity. 

B. C. 725. Romulus, the founder of Rome. 

We are told by the historian 
Livy, that Romulus was the 
son of the god Mars and 
the vestal virgin, Silvia, 
and that for centuries he was 
worshiped as the patron divin- 
ity of the Roman people. He 
was worshiped under the name 
of "Quirenius" in the early his- 
tory of Rome, — in the reign of 
the Tarquins. His worship was 
continued throughout the Repub- 
lic and well into the Empire. 
Martial mentions the temple of 
Quirenius and the worship of this 
divinity in the first century of 
our era. 

B. C. 700. Smyrna claimed to be the birth- 

place of Homer and his birth was 
there long held to have been su- 
pernatural. The Homereum — a 
beautiful structure — was built at 
this city for his formal worship. 



218 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

B. C. 600. Dionysus, was worshiped first in 
Thebes, later generally over 
Greece and Asia Minor. Festi- 
vals were established in his honor 
at Mount Citheron and at Mount 
Parnassus. Herodotus writes of 
the ecstatic devotion paid to Di- 
onysus and states that he had 
for his mother a Greek woman, 
named Semele, and for his father 
the god Zeus. 

B. C. 582. Pythagoras of Samos. From the 

biographers of Pythagoras, or 
rather from his commentators — 
Porphyry and Iamblichus, we 
learn that his father was the re- 
nowned god Apollo. That he 
was a philosopher and established 
a school of ethics, which ap- 
proached to a religious system. 
He taught the Egyptian doc- 
trine of transmigration of soul, 
and the infallible relations exist- 
ing between numbers, which may 
be termed a part of the science of 
mathematics. His philosophy 
enjoined reverence toward the 
gods and to parents, justice, gen- 
tleness, temperance, purity of life, 
prayer and regular self examina- 
tion. This good man, or son of 



MIRACULOUS CONCEPTIONS 219 

a god, was the first to announce 
that our world is a planet, that it 
is associated with other planets 
and that these revolve around the 
sun. This was the heliocentric 
theory which Christianity, six 
hundred years later, bitterly op- 
posed. Jesus gave to the world 
no knowledge of the universe, nor 
even of this planet on which we 
live. 

B. C. 460. Pericles was worshiped over 

Greece as an incarnation of Zeus. 

B. C. 427. Plato. It is said the Egyptian 

disciples of Plato taught that his 
mother, Perictione, had, as a Vir- 
gin, suffered a miraculous con- 
ception by the god Apollo, that 
the god had declared to Ariston 
this circumstance and that Aris- 
ton married her thereafter. Sen- 
eca, in the first century, relates, 
that certain Magi from Persia, 
who then happened to be in Ath- 
ens, visited the tomb of Plato and 
offered incense to him as to a di- 
vinity." 

B. C. 330. Alexander the Great. The ora- 

cle informed Alexander that his 
father was the god Jupiter Am- 



220 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

mon and not Philip of Macedon. 
After this information from the 
oracle, Alexander signed his let- 
ters and decrees, "King Alexan- 
der, Son of Jupiter Ammon." 
His mother, Olympia, however, 
denied the assumption. 

B. C. 325. Ptolemy, half brother of Alex- 

ander, was called a "Saviour" by 
his Egyptian subjects. 

B. C. 102-44. Julius Caesar, claimed to have 
descended, on his father's side, 
from the gods. Guizot quotes 
him thus : "My aunt Julia is, ma- 
ternally, the daughter of kings ; 
paternally, she is descended from 
the immortal gods ; my family 
unites, to the sacred character of 
kings, who are the most powerful 
amongst men, the awful majesty 
of the gods, who have even kings 
in their keeping." 

B. C. 4.— 

A.D. 1? Jesus. Matthew I. XVIII. "Now 

the birth of Jesus was on this 
wise: When his mother, Mary, 
was espoused to Joseph (before 
they came together) she was found 
with child of the Holy Ghost." 
St. Luke, . . . "And the 
Angel said unto them (the shep- 



MIRACULOUS CONCEPTIONS 221 

herds) fear not, for behold, I 
bring you good tidings of great 
joy, which shall be to all people. 
For unto you is born this day, in 
the city of David, a Saviour, which 
is Christ the Lord." 

From a very old Gospel attrib- 
uted to St. James : 

"Then Joseph arising from the 
ground, called Mary and said: 'O 
thou, who hast been so much fa- 
vored by God, why hast thou done 
this? Why hast thou thus de- 
based thy soul, who was educated 
in the Holy of Holies, and re- 
ceived thy food from the hands of 
Angels?' But she with a flood 
of tears, replied, 'I am innocent, 
and have known no man.' Then 
said Joseph, 'how comes it to 
pass thou art with child?' 
"Mary answered: 'As the Lord 
my God liveth I know not by what 
means.' 

"Then Joseph was exceedingly 
afraid and went away from her, 
considering what he should do with 
her; and he thus reasoned with 
himself; if I conceal her crime, I 
shall be found guilty by the law 
of the Lord ; and if I discover her 



PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

to the children of Israel, I fear, 
lest she, being with child by an 
Angel, I shall be found to betray 
the life of an innocent person. 
What therefore shall I do? 
"I will privately dismiss her. 
"Then the night was come upon 
him, when he beheld an Angel of 
the Lord, appeared to him in a 
dream, and said, 'Be not afraid 
to take that young woman, for 
that which is conceived by her is 
of the Holy Ghost, and she shall 
bring forth a son, and thou shalt 
call his name Jesus, for he shall 
save his people from their sins.' 
"Then Joseph arose from his 
sleep, and glorified the God of 
Israel, who had shown him such 
favor and preserved the Virgin. " 

B. C. 4. Apollonius of Tyana. It is re- 

lated by two historians, — Phil- 
ostratus and Dio Cassius — that 
Apollonius had for his father the 
god Proteus, and that Proteus 
appeared to his mother and in- 
formed her that the child with 
which she was then pregnant was 
an incarnation of himself. It is 
narrated that when the child was 
born, "the messengers of Apollo 



MIRACULOUS CONCEPTIONS 223 

sang at his birth," as the Angels 
sang at the birth of Jesus. Other 
prodigies also are said to have 
manifested themselves at that 
time. 

Apollonius became a preacher and 
a teacher of morals and religion 
and was late in life called the 
"Pagan Christ." He opposed 
the immorality and cruelty of that 
insufferable prince, Domitian, and 
everywhere over the empire, 
held the wickedness of the emperor 
up to view and ridiculed his as- 
sumption of the title, "Our Lord 
and God." (Dominus et Deus 
noster.) The emperor therefore 
had Apollonius apprehended and 
brought before him, whereupon 
Domitian asked Apollonius this 
question: "Why art thou called 
God?" 
A. D. 14. In the reign of Tiberius, this re- 

markable circumstance is said to 
have occurred: 

A Roman lady of wealth and many 
attainments and possessed of un- 
usual beauty was a regular wor- 
shiper at the temple of Anubis 
in Rome. One day a priest of this 
temple called on her, at her home 



224 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

and stated that the god Anubis 
had expressed his desire to have 
her remain at the temple over 
night, that he wished to visit with 
her. The lady felt honored that 
the object of her worship had thus 
expressed his desire to visit her, 
and made appointment as the 
priest had advised. I cannot re- 
late here, what followed. The de- 
tails of this unhappy incident are 
related in Josephus' "Antiquities 
of the Jews," Book 18, Chap. 3. 
The conception which followed was 
not an "immaculate" one. The 
fraud was detected by the merest 
accident but in time to save the 
world from the burden of another 
"miraculous conception." This 
occurrence was brought to the at- 
tention of Tiberius, who promptly 
caused the temple to be demolished 
and the priests crucified. 
A. D. 10-90. Simon Magus or Simon of Gitta, 
was a Samaritan Jew, a convert 
to Christianity and founder of the 
Samaritan Gnostic Christian sect 
known for several centuries as 
"The Simoniani." He is men- 
tioned in the Acts, was a friend of 
Felix, written of by Josephus, and 



MIRACULOUS CONCEPTIONS 225 

himself claimed to be "an incar- 
nation of the Divinity." The 
Christian Father, Justin Martyr, 
writing at about A. D. 138, men- 
tions Simon, — "one who performed 
such miracles in Rome, in the 
reign of Claudius, that he was 
thought to be a god and the em- 
peror honored him with a statue." 
And further says that the Samari- 
tans and many of the other na- 
tions "acknowledged him as the 
first God." Mention is made of 
him by Irenasus (A. D. 180). 
Tertullian (A. D. 200). Hippo- 
lytus (A. D. 220). Origen, (A. 
D. 270). Cyprian (A. D. 260). 
And by St. Cyril, bishop of Je- 
rusalem (A. D. 340). Cyril 
gives this rather ambiguous ac- 
count of his death: "Simon had 
given out that he was soon to be 
translated to heaven, and was 
actually careering through the 
air in a chariot drawn by demons, 
when Peter and Paul knelt down 
and prayed, and their prayer 
brought him to earth a mangled 
corpse." 
A. D. 39. Agrippa, king of the Jews, in the 

reign of Claudius, was held by 



226 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

many Jews to be a god. At a 
great festival, held at Cesarea, he 
appeared before the multitude in 
a garment made wholly of silver 
and presently many cried out, 
"Thou art a God; be thou merci- 
ful to us, for although we have 
hitherto reverenced thee only as a 
man, yet shall we henceforth own 
thee as superior to mortal nature." 
This was eleven years after the 
crucifixion of Jesus. It shows 
that the Jews were not averse to 
ascribing attributes of a god to 
their king. 
A. D. 1806. Napoleon allowed the impression 
that he was more than human, to 
gain credence with the multi- 
tudes in France. The catechism, 
made at that time by Cardinal 
Caprara, enjoined all to worship 
Napoleon. That a prelate could 
enjoin upon his suffragan bishops 
and upon the laity, the worship of 
Jesus and Napoleon, is almost in- 
credible, yet he had precedent to 
justify, or warrant it. Early in 
the history of the Church there 
were families in Rome that wor- 
shiped Jesus, Apollonius of Ty- 
ana and the gods of Rome. There 



MIRACULOUS CONCEPTIONS 227 

were families in Alexandria, too, 
that worshiped both Jesus and 
Sarapis. And there are millions 
now among us who worship, with 
equal zeal, the Galilean God and 
Mammon. 



VI 

THE NAZARENES 

Lord Byron makes "Childe Harold" say, when 
they approach Waterloo, — 

"Stop! for thy tread is on an Empire's dust! 
An earthquake's spoil is sepulchred below!" 

It is with this sentiment that I would have the 
reader approach the consideration of this subject, 
for we shall here see how a system of religion and 
ethics, to which the Author gave His fond devo- 
tion and His life, suffered defeat and anathema 
at the hands of a professed believer and disciple, 
who usurped the name of its founder and gave 
it to an association of proselytes at Antioch, and 
ascribed doctrines to Him which we have author- 
ity for believing were not uttered nor taught by 
Him. 

Forty days after the crucifixion of Jesus, the 
Apostles took steps to organize a congregation, 
or church. This congregation was first domiciled 
at Jerusalem and was known as "The Nazarenes." 
Just before the Jews had rebelled against their 
Roman rulers, and before Jerusalem was beseiged 
by Titus, in 70 A. D., this congregation, or sect, 
removed to Pela, a small town "beyond the Jor- 



THE NAZARENES 229 

dan," which the Macedonians had built some two 
centuries earlier, and established themselves there, 
and when the Roman armies invaded Judea, the 
Nazarenes were not disturbed. The members of 
this sect were Jews. They differed from the 
other Jews no more than the Pharisees, the Sad- 
ducees and the Essenes differed from one an- 
other. The Nazarenes were distinguished most 
by their belief that Jesus was the promised 
Messiah and that His coming had fulfilled the 
prophecies. 

An influential member of this sect of the Naza- 
renes was "James the brother of our Lord," a 
man of good repute with Pharisees and Saddu- 
cees alike, and of whom the historian Josephus 
speaks as "James the Just." Whatever the 
Nazarenes believed, therefore, must have been as- 
sented to by James. Nay more ; Peter and John 
and the other disciples at Jerusalem, and Mary 
the mother of Jesus, all were members of this sect 
of the Jews, and whatever doctrine this sect held 
must have been assented to by these conspicuous 
disciples as conforming fully with the teachings 
of Jesus. And at this early date this sect was 
not regarded by the Jews as a foreign institu- 
tion ; it was not thought to be anything outside 
and apart from Judaism; it stood for Judaism, 
the same as did the other sects mentioned. 

From the historian Eusebius we learn that the 
first fifteen bishops of the church at Jerusalem, 
and the Nazarenes are included in this general- 



230 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

ization, were circumcised Jews. Assuming a 
period of ten years to be the average term, or 
tenure, of a Bishop, this indicates that the char- 
acter of this Church, which was established by the 
Apostles, and which had been presided over by 
"James the brother of our Lord," had not de- 
parted from its early conceptions and creed in 
the space of one hundred and fifty years. This 
venerable sect continued true to its early tradi- 
tions until the Church at Rome, which had been 
founded by Paul, and which early developed into 
the "Holy Catholic Church," had anathematized 
and cursed, as heretical, the Nazarenes and the 
Church of the Nazarenes, which had been estab- 
lished by the Apostles, and Mary the mother of 
Jesus and had been presided over by "James the 
brother of our Lord." 

We learn from Paul's epistles that, after his 
conversion, "while on his way to Damascus," 
he retired to the desert of Arabia and that he 
conferred with "neither flesh nor blood," but that 
he took up the ministry without having familiar- 
ized himself with the life and teachings of Jesus. 
He essayed the establishment of a religion 
which he knew but little about, for we are given 
to understand, by Paul himself, that his "apostle- 
ship is not of man," but from "our Lord" di- 
rect. 

As a matter of fact, Paul had neither seen Jesus 
nor heard him teach, nor had he learned from 
Peter, or the other disciples, at this early day, 



THE NAZARENES 231 

what Jesus had really taught and what claims He 
had made. i 

There were no written gospels at this time. 

Paul met with a cold reception from the Jews 
of lower Asia, whither he had gone to begin his 
missionary work. His meetings in the syna- 
gogues were broken up in tumults. Paul him- 
self was sometimes stoned and otherwise roughly 
handled. Finally he decided to turn away from 
"the children of the promise," and we find him at 
Antioch in the latter part of the year 58 A. D., 
presenting Jesus to the Gentiles. Paul here threw 
the Jewish law aside, and openly repudiated all 
that the Jews, of every sect, held sacred and es- 
sential; he declared against circumcision, against 
purification and introduced doctrines, up to this 
time unknown to the Apostles and to the body of 
the Church of the Nazarenes at Jerusalem. 

It appears from one of the best authenticated 
epistles of Paul (Galatians) that, anticipating 
that the apostles at Jerusalem would be displeased 
with him for introducing innovations so radical 
and revolutionary, he went up to Jerusalem to 
make an explanation, "privately to them which 
were of reputation, lest by any means I should 
run, or had run in vain." As a result it appears, 
from a Pauline source, that Paul was able to 
make a favorable impression on them and secured 
the "right hand of fellowship" from many be- 
fore departing; but the elders of the Nazarenes 
feeling alarmed, soon sent Peter down to Antioch 



232 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

to look into Paul's work. It appears that Peter 
was at first displeased, whereupon Paul says: 
"I withstood him to the face because he was to be 
blamed," and it then appears that Peter at once 
sent for James and John, but that James sent a 
delegation from the Nazarene congregation to 
Antioch, but did not go down himself. In the 
meantime, Peter had relented somewhat and had, 
with Paul, eaten with the Gentile converts, but 
when "certain came from James he withdrew, 
fearing them which were of the circumcision." 
Whereupon Paul became angry and charged 
Peter with "dissimulation." The argument was 
so strong and acrimonious that Barnabas, a Jew, 
became alarmed at the magnitude of the innova- 
tion and at once separated himself from Paul. 
So we may safely infer that the delegates from 
the Church at Jerusalem returned feeling dis- 
pleased and alarmed and uncertain as to the out- 
come of Paul's course. 

It appears that Paul pushed his missionary 
work with the Gentiles and in a few years, prob- 
ably about four, from the date of these occur- 
rences, went up to Jerusalem for the last time. 
From the account given of this circumstance in 
Acts 21 (and we should bear in mind that the 
"Acts" were written by Luke, a Greek convert 
who had, years before, been associated with Paul 
in the ministry among the Gentiles), we learn 
that the elders of the Nazarene Church received 
Paul gladly and then said to him: "Thou seest, 



THE NAZARENES 233 

brother, how many thousands (myriads) there 
are among the Jews of them which have believed; 
and they are all zealous for the law; and they 
have been informed concerning thee, that thou 
teachest all the Jews which are among the 
Gentiles to forsake Moses, telling them not to 
circumcise their children, neither to walk after 
the customs. What is it therefore? They will 
certainly hear that thou art come. Do therefore 
this that we say to thee; we have four men which 
have a vow on them; these take and purify thy- 
self with them, and be at charges for them, that 
they may shave their heads ; and all shall know 
that there is no truth in the things whereof they 
have been informed concerning thee ( !) but that 
thou thyself also walkest orderly, keeping the 
law." . . . "Then Paul took the men, and 
the next day purifying himself with them, went 
into the temple, declaring the fulfillment of the 
days of purification, until the offering was 
offered for every one of them." 

It appears from this record that Paul here 
had recourse to "dissimulation" and did those 
things commanded in the law, and all in keeping 
with the request which the brethren of the 
Nazarene Church had made; which James, "the 
brother of our Lord," had enjoined; which Peter, 
the rock on which the Nazarene Church was built, 
had demanded, and which "John, the blessed dis- 
ciple," had requested. All after having opposed 
these brethren at Antioch; after having ad- 



234 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

vocated an abandonment of the law; after having 
taken into the Church Greeks, barbarians and 
what not, simply on confession that "Jesus is the 
Christ," and receiving baptism on that confes- 
sion. Thus did Paul alienate himself from the 
Jews and early brought the religion of Jesus into 
disfavor with the orthodox Jews, to whom Jesus 
came as to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 

There were certain Jews from lower Asia in 
Jerusalem at this time, and these recognized Paul, 
as the officers of the Nazarene Church had ex- 
pressed their fear would be thd case, and a tumult 
was raised, Paul was arrested and had a hearing 
at Cassarea before Felix. The case might be 
termed thus : "The people of Judea adversus 
Paul of Tarsus." And when the counsel for the 
prosecution had opened the case, he said among 
other things : "Notwithstanding that I be not fur- 
ther tedious unto thee, I pray thee, that thou 
wouldst hear us of thy clemency a few words. For 
we have found this man a pestilent fellow, and a 
mover of sedition among all the Jews throughout 
the world, and a ringleader of the sect of the 
Nazarenes" (Acts 24). This charge was half 
true and half false. Paul was a "mover of sedi- 
tion among the Jews throughout the world" be- 
cause, himself a Jew, he preached the violation of 
the laws of Moses and the ordinances of the Jews. 
The charge was false, however, in the statement 
that Paul was a "ringleader of the sect of the 
Nazarenes," but the counsel in this case doubt- 



THE NAZARENES 235 

less did not know that Paul was at variance with 
the Nazarenes. 

From Felix, Paul was sent to Rome in bonds 
and it appears that within two years thereafter, 
was lost at Rome in the persecution of "that sect 
of the Jews" by Nero. 

It must be evident to any unbiased mind that 
the Nazarene Church held strictly to Jewish tra- 
ditions, and that the founders of this Church were 
the disciples and kinsmen of Jesus, and we shall 
presently see that the descendants of a brother of 
Jesus were also members of this Church. Hence 
we may believe with all confidence that the doc- 
trines and works of Jesus were known to these and 
best interpreted by them. 

I will here insert a paragraph from a cele- 
brated treatise by Professor Huxley, — titled, 
"Agnosticism and Christianity," 1889, which 
has a bearing on this subject though indirectly 
expressed. 

"For suppose it to be established that Gentile 
Christianity was a totally different thing from the 
Nazareneism of Jesus and his immediate disciples ; 
suppose it to be demonstrable that, as early as the 
sixth decade of our era at least (60 A. D.), 
there were violent divergencies of opinion among 
the followers of Jesus ; suppose it to be hardly 
doubtful that the Gospels and the Acts took their 
present shapes under the influence of those diverg- 
encies ; suppose that their authors, and those 



236 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

through whose hands they passed, had notions of 
historical veracity not more eccentric than those 
which Josephus occasionally displayed; surely the 
chances that the gospels are altogether trust- 
worthy records of the teachings of Jesus become 
very slender. And, since the whole of the case of 
the other side is based on the supposition that they 
are accurate records (especially of speeches, about 
which ancient historians are so curiously loose), 
I really do venture to submit that this part of my 
argument bears very seriously on the main issue; 
and, as ratiocination, is sound to the core." 

The Nazarenes had written no epistles ; the gos- 
pels had not, up to the death of Paul, been written, 
and the work of the Nazarene Church was con- 
fined to and among the Jews, and the Jews were 
now a broken and ruined people, their star of em- 
pire set never to rise again. Paul had, however, 
worked with the Gentiles, these were the aggres- 
sive and virile peoples, among whom were the schol- 
ars and rulers of the world, from whom the civili- 
zation of Europe came, and with it Paul's concep- 
tion of Christianity. 

With the death of Paul in the Neronian perse- 
cution, came an end for a time of epistles and other 
documents proclaiming doctrine. It was, appar- 
ently, about twenty years later, that the Synop- 
tic gospels were written ; the "Revelations" was the 
first work to appear after Paul had ceased to write. 
The gospels were written by various persons in 



THE NAZARENES 237 

the latter part of the first and early in the second 
centuries, without date and without attestation of 
authorship. These gospels were generally of 
Gentile source and sympathy, were made to go 
back, in their accounts, and cover the whole field 
of tradition and story, from the birth of Jesus 
and even earlier, and the Greek, or Gentile, authors 
purposely ignored the Nazarene followers of Jesus. 
This was carried to such an extent, that as to at 
least one of the gospels and apparently and prob- 
ably several of them, the authorship was attrib- 
uted to Apostles then dead, who had been members 
of the Nazarene Church and who were, in this man- 
ner, made to formulate doctrine and report inci- 
dents that were contrary to the known belief and 
experience of the members of the society to which 
they had belonged. St. John Chrysostom of An- 
tioch (A. D. 345), the eminent Church Father, 
Archbishop of Constantinople, says that the 
names given to the four gospels were first assigned 
to them about the middle of the second century. 

If there is one book in the New Testament canon 
which bears upon its face the authenticity of its 
authorship, that book is the General Epistle of 
James, "the brother of our Lord." James was 
bishop of the Nazarene Church and he addressed 
his epistle to "The Twelve Tribes which are of 
the Dispersion. ,, That is to say, James the Jew 
addressed his epistles to his brethren, those of his 
own nationality, who were then, after the fall of 
Jerusalem, scattered over the Roman empire. For 



238 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

had not Jesus said that He came to save the lost 
sheep of the house of Israel? 

Gentile Christianity found nothing for the Gen- 
tiles in this Nazarene gospel and it did not reckon 
this book to be genuine. It was not put in the 
canon, in fact, until the fourth century (A. D. 
363). Even Luther condemned it and called it 
"a gospel of straw," presumably for the reason 
that it contains none of the cardinal doctrines of 
Gentile Christianity. It does not teach the doc- 
trines of Original Sin, Total Depravity, Forgive- 
ness of Sins, Baptism, Grace, Atonement, Predesti- 
nation, Justification, Hell-fire, or any other good 
thing prominent in Paul's gospels. With James, 
the bishop of the Nazarene Church, "the brother of 
our Lord," works and not faith, deeds and not pro- 
fessions, have the primacy among Christian vir- 
tues. 

An interesting circumstance, which occurred in 
the reign of Domitian, is related by Gibbon. Im- 
mediately following the rebuilding of the Capitol 
at Rome, a special and onerous tax was imposed 
on the Jews, and many Christians, in order to 
evade the tribute to "the Capitoline Jupiter," 
claimed that they were Christians and not Jews. 
All such doubtful cases of individuals, in Judea, 
were called up before the procurator and publicly 
examined to ascertain if they were circumcised, 
for the Roman judges made this sign the distin- 
guishing mark between Jew and Gentile. The 
Christians had to pay the tax along with the other 



THE NAZARENES 239 

Jews. The satirist, Martial, makes mention of 
these examinations in a highly facetious manner, 
and at some length. 13 Now there appeared before 
this tribunal in Judea two young men "of good 
appearance," who gave their names and lineage 
and proved to be of the congregation of Naza- 
renes and grandsons of St. Jude, who was a 
brother of Jesus. These men were farmers and 
resided near the village of Cocaba. 

Justin Martyr, a Greek theologian, set out his 
belief, in his dialogue with the Jew, Trypho, writ- 
ten about A. D. 150. His opinion may be ex- 
pressed in the form of categories. Under the head 
of "Not Saved" are those who believe as follows : — 

1. Orthodox Jews, who refuse to believe that Je- 

sus is the Christ. 

2. Jews, who observe the law, who believe Jesus 

to be the Christ, but who insist that the 
Gentile converts shall observe the law. 

3. Gentiles, who believe Jesus to be the Christ 

and call themselves Christians, but who eat 
meat sacrificed to idols. 

4. Gentiles, who disbelieve in Jesus as the Christ. 

Those that shall 1 be saved are : 

5. Jews, who observe the law, believe Jesus to be 

the Christ, and hold that Gentile converts 
need not observe the law. 

6. Gentile converts who believe Jesus to be the 

Christ, who observe the laws of the Jews. 

is "Mentula tributis damnata" ! 



240 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

7. Gentile believers in Jesus as the Christ, who 

do not observe the law themselves, except 
the refusal of sacrifices to idols, but do not 
hold those who do not observe it to be 
heretics. 

8. Gentile believers, who do not observe the law, 

except in refusing idol sacrifices, and hold 
that those who do observe it to be heretics. 

The second article condemns to future torment 
the Nazarene followers of Jesus, of whom were 
Peter, John, Mary and "James, the brother of our 
Lord." 

Justin believed in the pre-existence of Jesus as 
the "Logos" or "Word." He believed in the resur- 
rection of the body, as did also the Nazarenes and 
Pharisees, and he believed in the early second com- 
ing of Jesus as did likewise the Nazarenes. The 
doctrine of a judgment and of rewards and pun- 
ishments had in Justin's day taken on Greek con- 
ceptions and had become more formidable, than 
the belief held by the Nazarenes. Let us listen to 
a sermon delivered in Rome by Tertullian, a Greek- 
African theologian, about A. D. 200, titled, — "De 
Spectaculis." 

"Ye are fond of spectacles, O Romans, expect 
the greatest of all spectacles — the last and eternal 
judgment of the universe. How shall I admire, 
how laugh, how rejoice, how exult, when I shall be- 
hold so many proud monarchs, so many fancied 
gods, groaning in the lowest abyss of darkness ; 
so many magistrates who persecuted the name of 



THE NAZARENES Ml 

the Lord liquifying in fiercer fires than they ever 
kindled against the Christians ; so many sage 
philosophers, blushing in red hot flames with their 
deluded scholars ; so many celebrated poets trem- 
bling before the tribunal, not of Minos, but of 
Christ." 

The sentiments expressed by Tertullian can 
hardly be harmonized with the views held on this 
subject by the Nazarenes. However, this senti- 
ment became a real pleasure to our Puritan Fath- 
ers, fourteen centuries later, and inspired the zeal 
of many a Cotton Mather and Jonathan Ed- 
wards. 

The Christianity we know was not cradled in 
Judea, it was nursed and developed by fiery Gen- 
tile Greeks in Mediterranean Africa. We have 
but a meager conception of the character of the 
meetings of the early Christians. There was a 
state of mind engendered, which bordered on fright 
and frenzy. The preaching of the second cen- 
tury was lurid and realistic enough, it abounded 
in hyperbole. Worship was then ecstatic, — there 
was a tumultuous shouting: Credo! , Credo! 
Credo! — An hypnotic effect was created which 
burst forth, anon, in sobs and groans. The 
burden of a dying world was felt, the flames of hell 
were seen to flash and the wailing of the damned 
became audible. The voice that led and dominated 
those early meetings was of the catacombs. Prim- 
itive Christianity was cryptic; it smelt of the 
odors of the sepulchre. 



M2 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

No theologian can square the doctrines con- 
tained in the Nicene Creed, the Athanasian Creed 
and the Apostles' Creed with the doctrines held 
to by the Nazarene church of the time of Mary, 
of Peter, of John, of Jude, and over which was then 
presiding as bishop "James, the brother of our 
Lord." This primitive church of the apostles 
suffered its greatest schism at Antioch and met 
its "Waterloo" at Rome. 



VII 
"STROMATA" 

APOTHEOSIS 

The Augustan period is justly celebrated for 
its great men in statesmanship, in war and in let- 
ters. The civilized world was then dominated by 
Roman arms, by Roman jurisprudence, and by 
Roman thought and letters. We admire the force, 
the justice and the wisdom of Rome's great men 
of that age, but lament their superstition. 

About five years before the birth of Jesus and 
about the same year in which Philo was born, there 
came to birth in Tyana of Cappadocia, a child 
who was destined to receive the attention, the won- 
der and the adoration of thousands of his fellow 
men. Temples were built for his worship, priest- 
hoods were established to glorify his name; the 
oracles of Greece, of Egypt, of Asia and of Rome 
proclaimed his divinity, and emperors bowed at his 
shrine. When Apollonius had reached the age of 
twelve, he became a student in the Pythagorean 
school of philosophy and was admired for his ap- 
plication and deportment. For five long years he 
regulated his young life by the hard rules of this 
school ; he ate no meat, he drank no wine, he wore 
no colored clothing. To obtain knowledge was 

243 



244 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

his passion, and to sanctify it to the best in moral- 
ity and religion was his ambition. From school 
he sought the seclusion of the temple of Aescula- 
pius, where he studied medicine and the arts of 
healing. He astonished the priests of this tem- 
ple, for instead of becoming their student, he ap- 
pears to have been their instructor. From the 
temple he went forth to teach and to preach, be- 
ginning his ministry in the cities of Cilicia and 
Pamphylia ; he traveled and preached over Persia, 
Assyria and India. It is said that he preached 
a pure morality, urged a spirit of devotion and 
that his disciples followed and worshiped him. It 
is from his disciple, Damis, that the historian 
Philostratus (A. D. 180), wrote a history or biog- 
raphy of Apollonius, which, we are told, was under- 
taken at the request of Julia Domna, wife of Em- 
peror Septimius Severus. This work comprises 
more reading matter than is contained in the books 
of the New Testament. 

By way of parenthesis : The influence of Julia 
Domna and that of her sister, Julia Maesa, and of 
the daughters of Julia Mssa, Soemis and Mamaea, 
was paramount in the government of the Roman 
empire during the reigns of Caracalla, Macrinus, 
Elagabalus and Alexander Severus. These em- 
presses were better administrators of the affairs 
of state than their husbands, or their wards. 
Julia Domna and Mresa were beautiful and ac- 
complished women, daughters of a priest of the 
Sun, whose temple, — El-Giabal — was at Emesa, 



"STROM ATA" 245 

Syria. It is to the influence of these women, and 
to their credit as well, that the penalties and dis- 
abilities which afflicted the Jews and Christians 
were modified and that no important persecutions 
of the Christians occurred from the latter part of 
the reign of Septimius Severus to the close of the 
reign of Alexander Severus. It was Julia Ma- 
maea, neice of Julia Domna and mother of Alex- 
ander Severus, who sought and had a two hours' 
interview with the renowned Greek theologian, Ori- 
gen, at Antioch, in which, it is said, Origen in- 
structed her in the salient points and claims of 
Christianity. And it was this Julia' Domna whom 
we have mentioned here, prompted, or ordered, 
Philostratus to write! the biography of Apollonius. 

In the exhaustive work of Philostratus not a 
word is found of criticism, or of commendation, of 
Jesus, of the Apostles, or of the Christians. From 
this biography we learn that Apollonius proved his 
authority to teach and preach by performing 
miracles ; these he wrought at Ninevah, Ephesus, 
Rome and in the cities of Spain. He healed the 
sick, foretold the coming of eclipses, and at Rome 
astonished the magistrates by raising to life the 
dead body| of a "noble lady." 

Domitian was assassinated on the 18th day of 
September, A. D. 96. On this day Apollonius, 
then a very old man, was in Ephesus. The stir- 
ring scene of the tragedy, which took place in the 
emperor's bed chamber at Rome, was witnessed, 
subjectively, by Apollonius. He immediately called 



246 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

the priests and magistrates of Ephesus together 
and related to them the fact and circumstances of 
the assassination. This caused immense excite- 
ment at Ephesus. Some days later, a courier 
from Rome brought the news of the murder of 
Domitian to the Ephesians and the facts corres- 
ponded with all that Apollonius had related to 
them on the day of the assassination. 

His biographer closes his account of the life 
and works of this good man in these words : "Here 
ends the history of Apollonius as written by 
Damis ; concerning the manner of his death, if he 
did die, the accounts are various, for some say 
that he vanished at Lindus." 

It is related by Philostratus that the public wor- 
ship of Apollonius was quite general over the 
Roman empire and as far east as India; by an- 
other authority his worship is said to have been 
continued for upwards of four hundred years. 
Emperor Alexander Severus (A. D. 230) had a 
chapel in his own house in which were the statues 
of the gods of Rome, Jesus of Nazareth, and 
Apollonius of Tyana. 

Gustave Flaubert wrote a little book of nega- 
tion (Paris 1846) entitled, "The Temptation of 
St. Anthony," in which work he assembles repre- 
sentatives of all the sects of the early Christians ; 
depicts the personality, character, speech, cults, 
and dress of these numerous sectaries in the most 
realistic manner, and then makes them gather 
around St. Anthony, while he is seated in front of 



"STROMATA" 247 

his grotto by the cross in the Theban desert. 
These numerous exponents of Christianity, these 
hierarchs and heresiarchs are made to express 
their many and contrary views of God, the Uni- 
verse, Jesus, and Christianity to St. Anthony as 
to one whom they would proselyte. The scene 
becomes impressive, as we read, and we are re- 
minded of the time and' circumstance when Agrippa 
gathered statues of all the gods of the Roman 
world together and set them up face to face in the 
Pantheon at Rome. And how the scholars and 
philosophers of that day looked upon the spec- 
tacle and winked at one another! Seneca men- 
tions this incident and states that "the philoso- 
phers regarded these religions and the creeds 
which belonged to them, as all being equally 
false ;" that "the common people believed them to 
be all equally true ;" and that "the magistrates be- 
lieved them to be all equally useful." 

After the sectaries had affirmed and denied al- 
most every article of faith, every doctrinal as- 
sumption and every attribute of Deity and noth- 
ing but confusion and anger came of the conten- 
tion, St. Anthony with utter despair in his voice 
and countenance exclaims : "Who then is the real 
God?" 14 

The sectaries withdraw from the presence 
of the saint and the majestic figure of Apol- 
lonius of Tyana, and his disciple Damis, appear 

" "Qui est, maintenant, le vra Dieu"? 



248 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

at the Grotto and address themselves to St. An- 
thony. 

Apollonius recounts his numerous works, the 
miracles he had performed and his many pilgrim- 
ages, and expresses his desire to enlighten 
and uplift his fellow men. St. Anthony recog- 
nizes this prince of magicians, this "Pagan 
Christ," and manifests much uneasiness in his 
presence. 

Apollonius finally turns a searching gaze into 
Anthony's eyes and makes the following inquiries : 

Apollonius: "What is thy desire? Thy 

dream?" 15 
Anthony (murmurs) : "Jesus, Jesus come to 

my assistance." 

is Apollonius: Quel est ton d6sir? ton r&ve? 

Antoine: J6sus, J£sus, a mon aide! 

Apollonius: Veux-tu que je le fasse apparaitre Jesus? 

A ntoine : Quoi ? Comment ? 

Apollonius: Ce sera lui! pas un autre! II jettera sa 
couronne, et nous causerons face a face ! 

Damis: Dis que tu veux bien! Dis que tu veux bien! 

Antoine: (Au pied de la croix, murmur des oraisons.) 

Damis: Voyons, bon ermit, cher St. Antoine! . . . ne 
vous effrayez pas; c'est une facon de dire exag6ree, 
prise aux orientaux. Cela n'empeche nullment. . . . 

Apollonius: Lasse-le Damis! II croit, comme une brute, 
a la reality des choses. La terreur qu'il a des Dieux 
Pempeche de les comprenre; et il ravale le Dieu au 
niveau d'un roi jaloux! . . . Par-dessus toutes les 
formes, plus loin que la terre, au dela des cieux, reside 
le monde des idees, toute plein du verbe! D'un bond, 
nous franchirons l'autre espace; et tu saisiras dans 
son infinite l'Eternel, l'Absolu, l'Etre! 



"STROMATA" 249 

Apollonius: "Would thou have me cause Jesus 
to appear?" 

Anthony: (with some agitation): "What? 
How?" 

Apollonius: "It shall be him and no other, he 
will throw down his crown, and we will talk 
face to face." 

Damis to Anthony: "Say that you are willing! 
Say that you are willing !" 

Anthony, silent and frightened, moves to the foot 
of the cross and repeats the credo. 

Damis continues to urge Anthony to allow 
Apollonius to present Jesus before them. 

Apollonius to Damis: "Let him alone, he be- 
lieves as the brute, in the reality of things. 
The fear he has of the Gods prevents him 
from understanding them. He lowers his 
God to the level of a jealous king. 
Above all forms ; farther than the earth ; be- 
yond the skies, resides the world of ideas all 
pregnant with the Word ! By one leap we 
will cross the space to the other and seize on 
his Infinity — the Eternal — the Absolute — the 
real Being." 

THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 

Whence came this doctrine of a resurrection 
of the dead? Moses did not teach it, nor did he 
proclaim the immortality of the soul. The Jews 
do not appear to have believed this doctrine, nor 
to have been generally or specifically familiar with 



250 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

it, until after they had returned to Judea from 
their long captivity in Babylon. 

The Pharisees were the liberal party; the Sad- 
ducees were the conservative. The wealthy and 
aristocratic families were of the Sadducee sect; 
the laws of Moses were all in all to them; they 
would suffer no innovations. When the Phar- 
isees came to think favorably of this Egyptian 
superstition, — that there shall be a resurrection 
of the dead, — the Sadducees opposed the new 
doctrine with energy. The High Priest, John 
Hyrcanus, B. C. 105, was a Sadducee, and the 
High Priest, Ananus, who condemned James, the 
brother of Jesus, to death, was a Sadducee, from 
which we may infer that it was not an article of 
faith with the priesthood, that the dead shall rise 
again. 

This belief, then, did not originate with the 
Jews. The ancient Egyptian mythology had 
three postulates touching this, or rather a kindred 
belief. These were: 

First : that man had a prior existence. 

Second: that he has a present existence. 

Third: that he shall have a future existence. 

From these premises an early Greek philoso- 
pher deduced the theory of a transmigration of 
soul, and many believed in the even more gross 
conception of a metamorphosis. The mythology 
of the Phoenicians and early Greeks reflect a be- 
lief in an under world of shades and shadows. 
We see this especially in the sublime works of 



"STROMATA" 251 

Homer and of Hesiod, B. C. 850. These men 
lived and wrote two hundred years before the 
Jews had returned from their captivity in Baby- 
lon, in the reign of Cyrus. Some four hundred 
and fifty years after Homer, we find a better 
conception of spirit life developed by Socrates 
and Plato ; later, a quite general theory, indefi- 
nitely expressed, of the continuity of life came to 
be believed. It is quite probable that it was from 
the Egyptian or early Greek speculations, or from 
the Aryan worshipers of Mithra with whom 
they came in touch at Babylon, that the Pharisee 
sect of the Jews came to believe in a final resur- 
rection of the dead. We have in our day, a sect 
whom we know as Spiritualists, who make belief 
in the continuity of. life an article of faith, and 
who undertake to demonstrate its truth. After 
a patient investigation of their claims, and of 
their methods of demonstration, covering a period 
of ten years, I am not at all convinced of the 
truth of their proposition. 

This doctrine did not come down to us from 
God on Sinai. It has been evolved from rude 
conceptions and adorned with the choicest senti- 
ments of hope and expectation. 

The most refined and philosophic belief touch- 
ing spirit life was brought to the confines of west- 
ern civilization from remote India. Briefly it is 
this : that the spirit is an emanation from the God- 
head, and that with the dissolution of the body 
the spirit returns to, and is absorbed by, the God- 



252 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

head. In this, the process of emanation and ab- 
sorption is constant. 

The most noted exponent of this doctrine in 
Europe was the celebrated Mohammedan 
scholar and peripatetic philosopher, Averroes. 
He holds that it is reasonable and believable that 
the transition from the individual to the universal, 
upon the death of the body, is instantaneous. 
The Buddhists maintain that human personality 
continues in a declining degree of intensity for 
a term before non-entity, or nirvana is attained. 

The Saracen philosopher, Al-Gazzali, was a 
powerful representative of this doctrine. He 
says: "God has created the spirit of man out 
of a drop of his own light ; its destiny is to re- 
turn to Him. Do not deceive yourself with the 
vain imagination that it will die. . . . Your 
spirit came into the world a stranger, it is only 
sojourning in a temporary home. From the trials 
and temptations of this troublesome life, our re- 
fuge is in God. In reunion with Him we shall 
find eternal rest." 

The Catholic Church has persistently opposed 
this doctrine and the Lateran Council, A. D. 
1512, condemned it formally. 

This conception is a beautiful one. Some 
twenty years ago I had the pleasure of hearing a 
representative of this faith preach to a cultured 
audience in San Francisco. He spoke from a 
philosophic platform. His opening prayer was 
addressed to the "Infinite Spirit," and as he pro- 



"STROMATA" 253 

ceeded with his invocation, the audience felt the 
force and sincerity of his belief, — that the spirit 
within him was truly appealing to the Universal, 
or Infinite Spirit of which his was a separated 
part. The imagery, the beauty, the radiance of 
his conception, and of his appeal, were an inspir- 
ation and a joy to all who were present and hung 
upon his words. 

This, and the other theories we have considered, 
cannot, however, rise to the importance of "be- 
liefs" in a strict sense, for a belief is justified 
only by the possibilities of demonstration. As a 
matter of. fact we have not progressed much, if 
any, in knowledge of spirit life beyond that of 
which the anatomist can inform us. We may be 
hopeful, but we are not assured. 

There is a great gap between the doctrine of 
the Pharisee and the opinion of the eminent nat- 
uralist, Professor Huxley, of the latter part of 
the last century, whom I abbreviate. He holds 
that soul, spirit and mind are one and the same 
thing, and that this is a brain function, developed 
with the brain and suffers the fate of the brain. 

We may hope. We may conjecture. We may 
make deductions from analogy ; but after all we 
remain agnostic. 

ATHANASIAN, OR ARIAN, WHICH? 
"Amid the herd the leopard knows his kind, 
The tiger preys not on the tiger brood; 
Man only is the common foe of man." 

— Juvenal. 



254 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

In the twilight zone of history, there looms up 
on the eastern horizon the lurid clouds of smoke 
and flame that tell us of the conflagration of war 
on the storied plains of Phrygia and before the 
walls of Troy. The arts of classic verse and 
sculpture have made immortal the deeds and the 
heroes of that eventful struggle. 

Homer tells us that one of the princes of 
Troy, at the suggestion of the goddess Aphro- 
dite, seized upon and carried away to Troy, the 
beautiful Helen of Lacedaemon, wife of Menelaus, 
and of the ten years' seige of Troy, by the Greeks, 
which followed. And Lucian describes to us, in 
the most engaging and lively manner, in his trea- 
tise entitled "Dialogues of the Gods," how Jupi- 
ter had, earlier, delegated to Paris, the Trojan 
prince, the interesting but dangerous office of ex- 
amining the three reigning and jealous beauties 
of Heaven, Hera, Athena and Aphrodite, and of 
determining which was the most beautiful. And 
how, after a painstaking and minute investiga- 
tion , of their respective charms, he awarded the 
prize, — an apple with this inscription, "Let the 
beautiful one take me," — to Aphrodite, after hav- 
ing first received from her a promise that she 
would assist him to seize and carry off to Troy, 
the far-famed and beautiful Helen. Wherein we 
see how great wars sometimes arise from small 
provocations. 

The Council of Nicaea, held in A. D. 325, was 
presided over by Emperor Constantine. The ex- 



"STROMATA" 255 

citing scenes that arose in this great council were 
beyond the power of the historians of that day to 
comprehend and describe. Constantine was a 
soldier and a man of action. He found great 
joy in the din and turmoil of battle, in the excite- 
ment of the races in the hippodrome, and in the 
combats in the arena of the colosseum at Rome. 
So it was that he witnessed, with real barbaric 
pleasure, the struggle, the passion and the energy 
that were displayed before him, by this assembly 
of Greek bishops, as they grappled and jostled 
one another in their desire to reach the tribune 
and from it enter into the combat of words and 
ideas. The emperor was not familiar with the 
abstruse propositions and niceties of Greek logic, 
but, admiring the commotion, turned to Eusebius, 
bishop of Nicomedia, who sat by his side and 
said: "Splendid! (Splendid! what is it all 
about?" When this memorable convention had 
finally adopted a creed, and the majority had 
adopted resolutions anathematizing the minority, 
it was ascertained that, as a part of the fruit of 
the labor of the council, eighteen different, dis- 
tinct and "jarring" sects had been born, and that 
the sectaries of each were in bitter hostility to all 
the others. In the fratricidal strife that fol- 
lowed, the real antagonists were the Athanasian, 
or orthodox party, and the followers of Arius, 
or the Arian party. The loss of life occasioned 
by the fierce and bloody strife between these par- 
ties from the date of the Nicene council to the as- 



256 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

cension of Julian to the throne of Rome, — 38 
years — was greater than that of all the martyr- 
doms which had taken place under the pagan 
emperors from the beginning of the reign of Nero 
to the close of the reigns of Diocletian and Galer- 
ius, a period of 269 years. 

In the fierce quarrels which arose between these 
sects, during those 38 years, the military forces 
of the empire were frequently called into use; 
now in the interest of one party and again in the 
interest of the other. Bishops were dragged 
from their episcopal thrones and hurried off to 
exile, or, as in case of Bishop George of Cappa- 
docia, to execution. On one occasion in a street 
fight in Constantinople, the Orthodox party, the 
Arian party and the army were engaged and 
there were 3150 killed. At another time, the ca- 
thedral of Alexandria was besieged and broken 
into by the troops of Constantine ; the congre- 
gation that had met to worship was engaged by 
the troops, a hand to hand battle followed, which 
did not end until the tessellated floor and pictured 
walls of the edifice were baptized in blood. 

At this time the city of Alexandria was divided 
into two hostile camps. The followers of Athan- 
asius, supporters of the Nicene creed, and the 
followers of Arius who opposed all those of that 
creed. Athanasius, foreseeing a conflict, and 
fearing that he might be overpowered by the 
Arian party, sent couriers out to the Monks, who 
at this time numbered thousands, and who were 



"STROMATA" 257 

living in sepulchral grottos in the desert around 
Thebes. These wild fanatics were marshalled 
in the cause of the trinitarians and came to the 
city as an army would come, singing their songs 
of war and religion with the refrain: "The Ari- 
ans — The Arians — where are they !" 

From the account given of this event it appears 
that these Monks were a hideous lot, dressed in 
skins of lions and leopards, with uncut hair fall- 
ing over their shoulders and their long gray 
beards reaching to their waists. They came 
armed with clubs, which bristled with nails and 
when well within the city, they charged upon the 
Arians with yells and fury. 
The slaughter begins. 

The Arians are dislodged from their position. 
Encouraged now by Athanasius, the Monks pur- 
sue and kill as they pursue. Returning, they 
pillage the shops and dwellings of the Jews, ran- 
sack the homes of the rich, drag the old men from 
their houses by their beards and throw them into 
the streets. Women with bare arms outstretched 
for mercy, and with tearful eyes raised implor- 
ingly, are outraged and then murdered. Chil- 
dren are thrown into cisterns, or brained in the 
presence of their mothers. The fury of the wild 
beasts of the desert was no more terrible than the 
rage of these Pauls and Anthonies of the Thebaid 
who could, when moved by zeal, kill, pillage and 
ravish with enthusiasm in the name of Jesus. 

These conflicts were likewise carried into the 



258 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

church councils. After the meetings were opened 
with prayer, and conciliatory speeches made, the 
sectaries would invariably precipitate serious 
trouble ending in personal encounters. At a coun- 
cil held at Ephesus about tkis time, Dioscorus, the 
patriarch of Alexandria, killed Elorian, the pa- 
triarch of Constantinople — "by kicks and blows" 
in a most un-Christian-like manner. 

In all parts of Egypt and the Asiatic prov- 
inces of the empire, and in parts of Europe, the 
destruction of property and slaughter went on 
until the loss of life exceeded that, which Homer 
tells us, occurred in the ten year seige of Troy. 

Now, all this was occasioned by, and can be 
measured by, the difference in meaning of the two 
Greek adjectives ; "Homoousian" and "Homoiou- 
sian." I venture to state that no English' scholar 
can pronounce these words that another can dis- 
tinguish one from the other; but to those Greek 
casuists they had a different, if not a dark and 
sinister meaning. When these words were used 
to denote the relation of Jesus to God ; of the Son 
to the Father ; "Homoousian" meant, "of the sub- 
stance of;" while "Homoiousian" meant, "of like- 
ness to." The former is the orthodox view of 
Jesus in the trinity ; the latter is the Arian view. 
This difference of opinion created two irreconcil- 
able Christian bodies and the space of fifteen cen- 
turies has not healed the breach, nor bridged the 
chasm that separates them. 

Thus we find that a more serious war and a 



"STRGMATA" 259 

more prolonged struggle, grew out of the dif- 
ference which exists in the meaning of two 
Greek words, than followed the rape of Helen of 
Lacedsemon. 

"THEOTOKOS" 

At the council of Ephesus, A. D. 431, it was de- 
creed that Mary, the mother of Jesus, should be 
thenceforth known as the "Mother of God" and 
that she should be entitled to divine honors. This 
decree was reaffirmed at the council of Chalce- 
don, A. D. 441, and thus the formal worship of 
Mary became a part of the creed of the Catholic 
Church. The initiative in this was taken by the 
Greek bishops, led by St. Cyril of Alexandria. 
This is the St. Cyril who caused the murder of the 
beautiful and accomplished Hypatia. The oppo- 
sition to the movement, for the worship of Mary, 
was led by Nestorius, bishop of Constantinople, 
and by a presbyter named Anastasius. "Let no 
one call Mary the Mother of God," said Anasta- 
sius in the council, "for Mary was a human being ; 
and that God should be bora of a human being is 
impossible. . . . And we affirm that it is im- 
possible that the God-head could either be born 
or made to suffer." A great uproar followed and 
Anastasius was threatened with ejection. Nes- 
torius proposed the title "Mother of Christ," 
rather than "Mother of God." By fraud the 
"Nestorians" were defeated in the council, Nes- 
torius was deposed from his episcopal throne at 



260 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

Constantinople and sent into exile. The "Nes- 
torian Creed," however, was soon developed and 
a very considerable body of Nestorian Christians 
settled in Syria and established schools and col- 
leges there. These Christians have since spread 
over Arabia, Persia, and even into India and 
China,* and are an important body to this day, 
living among Mohammedans and Buddhists, yet 
without offending or closely affiliating with either. 
It is quite proper that we should consider the 
influences that led to this important innovation. 
It is stated that the women of Constantinople met 
Nestorius on his return from the council at Ephe- 
sus, and expressed their displeasure at the posi- 
tion he had taken in the council, and that many 
met him "with jeers and ridicule." It is known 
that the emperor's sister was in sympathy with 
the mob, for she had been an advocate, for some 
time, of the proposition to worship Mary as the 
Mother of God. It is stated, too, that when Cyril 
came up to the council at Ephesus, a large con- 
course of women followed him from Alexandria, 
showing their interest and enthusiasm in the prop- 
osition ; for had not Juno, the Queen of Heaven, 

* A large monolith stands in the rear of a Buddha tem- 
ple at Sian-fu, provincial capital of Shensi, north central 
China, erected A. D. 781^ by Nestorian Christians to com- 
memorate the results of their propaganda in that prov- 
ince. The inscriptions are in Syrian and Chinese char- 
acters and perfectly legible. A replica of this monolith 
may be seen at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New 
York. 



"STttOMATA" 261 

long been adored by the ancestors of these Greeks ? 
Had not Ceres been celebrated at harvest time 
in songs and by offerings of grain, in temples 
that yet remained sequestered in fragrant groves 
in Greece! And here in Ephesus, the renowned 
Ephesus ! were the descendants of those who had 
marched on festal days in throngs to the temple 
of Diana and, with chaplets on their brows, and 
with garlands in their hands, had joined in the 
tumultuous shout : "Great is Diana of the Ephe- 
sians !" 

It was here at Ephesus that the women crowded 
around their bishop, after the council had been 
adjourned, and with ecstatic joy and tears em- 
braced his knees and received from him the glad 
assurance that the council had decreed that Mary 
was thenceforth to be known as "Theotokos," — 
the Mother of God, — and that divine honors 
might now be paid to her as their ancestors had 
honored and adored Diana. 

At Alexandria, at Carthage and over all of 
northern Africa, the desire to worship the Virgin 
had become insistent. Egypt was the birthplace 
of the "Divine Isis." Her image standing on 
the crescent moon, with her infant, Horus, at her 
breast, was ineffaceably stamped on the Tombs 
and Temples of Egypt, and on the minds and 
hearts of the sons and daughters of that mysteri- 
ous land. What memories cluster around the 
shrine of this fruitful Goddess ! How the mys- 
teries of life and motherhood cling to her 



262 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

skirts ! The austere Christian Fathers of earlier 
periods had done much to rob the goddess of her 
ancient glory, but now she is to be given back to 
the daughters of Egypt under the new name and 
in the beautiful and artistic conception of the 
Madonna and Child! And so it came to pass 
that, after the council of Ephesus had made its 
decrees, that Isis was restored in Egypt under the 
name of Mary, the Mother of God. 

St. Cyril and party now departed from Ephe- 
sus for Alexandria by ship. It was a merry 
party, made joyous by success and now its hap- 
piness was heightened by common congratula- 
tions. They sped over the sea with anticipa- 
tions of a happy meeting with friends at Alex- 
andria, and as they came into the harbor under the 
glare of the flaming cresset of burning pitch, 
which nightly burnt from the summit of Pharos, 
four hundred feet above the crested waves that 
washed the base of this magnificent Light-house, 
they knelt, while blending their voices softly in a 
litany to the Son and Virgin for having had a 
prosperous journey and a safe return. They 
were met at the mole by Peter the reader, a band 
of monks from Nitria and by thousands of zeal- 
ous and enthusiastic Christians from the city, for 
the news of the result of the council at Ephesus 
had preceded them; and now the great crowd 
formed into line and moved up the broad street 
which led from the mole to the Greek section of 
the city; first passing by the slender marble col- 



"STROMATA" 263 

umns, at the quays, that lifted their heads far up 
above the mole and on which were perched bronze 
eagles with outstretched wings. Then along 
either side of this beautiful avenue, were set at 
regular intervals the marble statues of the Mace- 
donian kings and the emperors of Rome; these 
St. Cyril and his followers passed unheeding by. 
Passing also the Palace of the Ptolemies, — em- 
bowered in palms and cypresses, by blooming lotus 
and a tarn. Then the Soma — containing the 
tomb of Alexander; the Museum, the Possidium, 
the Timonium, the Paneum and the ivory statue 
of Aphrodite ; now passing through the somber 
shadows of the Temples of Osiris and Anubis ; 
onward the chanting throng moved until it reached 
the Obelisks — that had been quarried and fash- 
ioned by the Pharoahs and transported thither 
from Heliopolis by Tiberius. 16 All these venerable 
works of a great people, and a mighty past, were 
not observed by Cyril and his unobserving zealots. 
The procession here reached its objective point 
at the Cssarium, — a structure built for, and dedi- 
cated to, the formal worship of the emperors of 
Rome, but since the days of Constantine the 
Great, occupied by the Christians who made it the 
episcopal throne of Alexandria. The throng 
now comprised Christians of every caste and color ; 
Jewish proselytes from Asia Minor, Greeks from 

i« One of these three obelisks was brought to New York 
and set up in Central Park in 1880, at the charges, and 
by the bounty of, W. H. Vanderbilt. 



264 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

everywhere, Romans from Italy and Gaul; An- 
chorites from the Theban desert, all — all com- 
mingling marched round and round the Caesarium 
singing, or chanting, the Te Deum. 

The Marionites, a considerable body of Chris- 
tians, regarded the trinity as comprising "God 
the Father, God the Son, and Gjod the Virgin 
Mary." The Colly ridians, another body of 
Christians, worshiped the Virgin as a divinity, 
offering sacrifices to her. The Simonians — a 
Gnostic Christian sect — held that the Holy Ghost 
was feminine, and worshiped her as the Prouni- 
kos. 

The worship of Mary has continued from the 
day of that celebrated council of Ephesus down 
to our time. In 1864, His Holiness, the Pope, 
enjoins the worship of Mary in his celebrated 
"Encyclical Letter and Syllabus," in these words : 
"In order that God may accede the more easily 
to our and to your prayers let us employ in all 
confidence, as our mediatrix with Him, the Virgin 
Mary, Mother of God, who sits as queen on the 
right hand of her only (?) begotten Son, our 
Lord Jesus Christ, in a golden vestment, clothed 
around by various adornments. There is nothing 
she cannot obtain from Him." 

The Protestants ridicule the position which 
the Catholic Church has long maintained on this 
subject. They should remember, however, that the 
council of Ephesus was held long after the coun- 
cil of Nicasa (106 years later), in which the creed 



"STROM AT A" 265 

of the Christian Church (which was the Catholic 
Church), was developed and affirmed. The prop- 
osition is, in fact, a logical deduction from the as- 
sumption that Jesus is the Son of God and, as 
expressed in the Nicene creed, "Very God of Very 
God," and likewise the Son of Mary. Now, if 
Mary is not the Mother of God, the error lies in 
the premises found in the creed referred to and 
not in the conclusion, alone, of the Syllogism, — 
which may be expressed thus: 

Jesus Christ is Very God of Very God, Mary 
is the Mother of Jesus Christ, therefore Mary is 
the Mother of God. 

Those who do not give assent to the Nicene 
creed need not, however, be perplexed over this 
complicated proposition. The popular demand 
for the worship of Mary, early in the fourth 
century, was born of superstition and inclination 
to idolatry, rather than of a desire based upon 
the logic of the situation. 

There is no authentic record showing when or 
where Mary died, or where she was buried. There 
was published in the fourth century an account 
of the death of Mary which declares that: "The 
Apostles were miraculously assembled around her 
death bed at Bethlehem on the Lord's day, where- 
upon Christ descended with a multitude of angels 
and received her soul," etc. There is nothing in 
history, or tradition, to substantiate this ac- 
count. We may safely conclude that it is wholly 
fictitious. 



266 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

TOUCHING THE TRINITY 

Great warriors and great statesmen live in his- 
tory, because a greater than they lived to record 
their deeds and portray their motives. Men of 
action die and their works would be interred with 
their bones, were it not that men of letters snatch 
them from oblivion, or from the uncertainties of 
tradition, and make them and their deeds immor- 
tal. 

Four hundred years before the Christian era, 
an Athenian taught his countrymen in the groves 
and in the porticos of Athens a profound philos- 
ophy, from which deductions have been made that 
have greatly influenced religious thought, the 
sciences and statesmanship. Out of the intel- 
lect of Plato, thoughts were externalized into 
form and attributes made persons, and from the 
realm of his imagination, or his metaphysics, sub- 
stance and form came forth to bewilder but none 
the less charm us. From Plato's speculations in 
the "Timaeus," and from his writings generally, 
he has not only perpetuated his own name and 
fame, but that also of the even more profound 
and original thinker, his countryman and friend 
— Socrates. The law of evolution appears to 
have taken up the conceptions of Plato and after 
they had been shaped and colored by the Sto- 
ics, became the philosophy of "Platonism." 
Here again we find personality given to princi- 
ples. Coming down to the Christian era, in the 



"STROMATA" 267 

third century of the institution of the Schools of 
Alexandria, we find "New Platonism" in its early 
but rapid, stage of development, preceded and 
facilitated by the speculations of the great 
scholar and Helenic Jew — Philo. So by the time, 
and at the time, the New Testament books were 
written we find a "Logos" doctrine or philosophy 
well developed. To the Greek this meant per- 
sonified Wisdom. To the Jew it meant personi- 
fied Word. The theologians of the first, second 
and third centuries were evolved from the Greek 
philosophers. They ascribed to Jesus the em- 
bodiment of "The Wisdom," and "The Word" of 
God and He was spoken of as the "Logos." 

The writer of St. John's Gospel was familiar 
with this Alexandrian philosophy. He begins his 
subject: "In the beginning was the Word, and the 
Word was with God, and the Word was God." 
In the "Acts of Paul" (a book no longer in the 
canon) the writer closes his argument touching 
Jesus: "And here is the Word a living being." 
And the Greek theologian Origen, writing on the 
same subject uses the phrase, "the Wisdom and 
the Word incarnate." We have seen how this 
idea was developed and how by changing the pro- 
noun "it" to the pronoun "him," an attribute was 
transformed into a person. 

Had the authors of the New Testament left Je- 
sus thus portrayed to the world, allowances would 
have been made for the imagery of speech. His 
splendid personality would have been understood 



268 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

and appreciated; but when the doctrine of His 
miraculous conception, and the details thereof, 
were made a part of His life, history and mission, 
the incomprehensible elements of mysticism were 
introduced and we have an individual that is half 
God and half man. This conception gave the 
critics and satirists of the second, third and 
fourth centuries occasion for ridicule and they 
were not slow to improve it. 

Lucian, A. D. 120-195, gave the following par- 
allel: in the mythology of the Greeks, Herakles 
was the son of the god Zeus, and his mother was a 
mortal. Now Lucian gives us a dialogue be- 
tween Diogenes and Herakles which purports to 
have taken place in the after life, in Hades. — 

Diogenes: Is not this Herakles? O glorious 
victor, are you then a dead man? For I 
used to offer sacrifices to you above ground, 
as if you were divine. 

Herakles : And you did perfectly right, for the 
true Herakles himself is in company of 
the gods in heaven while I his ghost am 
here. 

Diogenes: What! A ghost of a God? And is 
it possible for one to be a God in one-half of 
one's person and to have died in the other 
half? 

Herakees: Yes, for he has not died, but I, his 
simulacrum. 

Diogenes: Your mother gave birth, you imply, 



"STROMATA" 269 

to two Herakleses at the same time, one by 
herself and one by Zeus. 

Herakles: No, vain trifler, we both were one 
and the same person. 

Diogenes: It is not easy to understand this — 
that there were two Herakleses compounded 
into one, except perhaps that you had grown 
together, man and God. 

Herakles: What, don't you suppose all men to 
be compounded of two parts, soul and body? 
What is to hinder the soul, which is from 
Zeus from being in heaven, while my mortal 
part from being with the dead? 

Diogenes : Nay, you are very near making 
Herakles into a trinity. 

Herakles: How a trinity? 

Diogenes: In this way: if the one, whoever it 
is, is in heaven, and the one that is here is 
you the ghost, and your body which has al- 
ready been buried at Alta, these surely are 
three. . . . 

And that other proposition which was developed 
at and by the Nicene council, — that the Father 
and the Son, God and Jesus, are co-eternal and 
yet that the Son was begotten by the Father, and 
of the same substance of the Father, — was not 
easily explained to the "pagan" scholars of the 
fourth century. 

The Arian party in the Nicene council opposed 
this doctrine. They affirmed that, "There was a 



270 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

time when Jesus Christ was not"; that, "before 
He was begotten He was not"; that "He came 
into existence from what was not," and that, 
"He is of a different person or substance than 
God." 

The quarrel that here arose shook the whole 
empire. The orthodox proposition was bur- 
lesqued upon the stage in Alexandria ; Jesus was 
impersonated and his impersonator was questioned 
sharply by one assuming the character and dress 
of a Platonist philosopher. This quizzical exam- 
ination was received by the audiences with tre- 
mendous laughter, and was what we would now 
call "a great hit," by the comedians of A. D. 325. 
This interlude was presented with variations but 
substantially and usually as follows : — 

(Interlude) 

Platonist: Is not thy name Jesus, and wast 
thou not born at Bethlehem in Judea when 
Herod the Great was king of the Jews? 

Jesus : Yes. 

Platonist : Didst thou not grow up to manhood 
and work at the carpenter's trade in the vil- 
lage of Nazareth? 

Jesus : Yes. 

Platonist: Whether wrongfully or not, wast 
thou not apprehended by thy countrymen at 
Jerusalem, and tried for a crime before the 
Sanhedrin and condemned, when Caiaphas 
was High Priest? 



"STROMATA" 271 

Jesus : Yes. 

Piatonist: And was not the judgment of the 
Sanhedrin acquiesced in by the procurator — 
Pontius Pilate, in the reign of Tiberius, and 
wast thou not crucified, when Herod was Te- 
trarch of Galilee? 

Jesus : Yes. 

Platonist: It has recently been affirmed at Ni- 
caea, by thy followers that thou art the Son 
of God, and that thou art of the same sub- 
stance as that of God, and that thou art co- 
eternal, or of the same age, as of God; now 
if thou wert begotten by the Father and yet 
art of the same age as the Father, this is 
hard to understand. Wilt thou not explain 
this riddle unto us? 

A long silence, and then the curtain is drawn 
across the stage, and the merriment of the audi- 
ence follows. Sacrilegious ! Not at all. Con- 
sider that the audience was composed of wealthy 
Jews, — the merchants of Alexandria, Greek schol- 
ars and philosophers, and Roman magistrates. 
Pagans if you will have it so, but none the less 
they were the wealthy, the intellectual and the in- 
fluential classes of that famous city at that time. 

These problems are surrounded with many and 
inscrutable mysteries. The earliest and most con- 
cise definition or attempted definition, of this in- 
definable conception of the trinity, is one by 
Athanasius : — "We worship one God in trinity and 



272 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

trinity in unity; neither confounding the person 
nor dividing the substance." 

When we begin to reason of spiritual genera- 
tion and of Infinite matter or substance, we soon 
find ourselves entangled in the meshes of the most 
incongruous abstractions and long to get oar feet 
on firm ground. The doctrines of the trinity 
may be true, but they are beyond my comprehen- 
sion. 



VIII 

DUALISM 

Ah! when within our narrow room, 

The friendly lamp again doth glow, 

An inward light dispels the gloom 

In hearts that strive themselves to know. 

Reason begins again to speak, 

Again the bloom of hope returns, 

The stream of life we fain would seek, 

Ah, for life's source our spirit yearns. 

— Faust. 

Early in the first century there was centered 
at Alexandria a group of scholars considering 
the problems suggested by the dualism apparent 
in nature. The minds of these Gnostics were 
ablaze with speculations on this subject and the 
influences arising therefrom spread out from 
Alexandria agitating powerfully the communities 
of the Levant. Two forces had become apparent 
and their relations sharply defined. By the 
Aryan cults these had been typified in Light and 
Darkness, and personified in Ormuzd and Ahri- 
man. Platonism had drawn the line closely be- 
tween Mind and Matter and had affirmed the sep- 
arate and independent existence of the former. 

In the metaphysics of the schools, Good and Evil 

273 



274 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

had become something more than relative terms. 
Ethics had discovered and explored the kingdoms 
of the good and bad in human nature and conduct 
— Dualism was rampant. Twenty years earlier 
Jesus had been crucified at Jerusalem and now for 
the first time his doctrines were given to the Gen- 
tile world by the Apostle Paul, an apostate from 
orthodox Judaism. The propositions promul- 
gated by Paul in the Greek cities of lower Asia, 
Greece and Italy were quickly and eagerly con- 
sidered by the Gnostic school at Alexandria, from 
which many of the Fathers of the Christian 
Church were, later, graduated and who injected 
into the ethics of Jesus many foreign myths. 
Semitic monotheism was made to conform to Iran- 
ean and Greek polytheism and to assume the garb 
of Persian dualism. In the light of these impor- 
tant principles given to the ethics of Jesus the 
gospels were written, and by an extension of this 
likeness the Greek bishops of Africa, who were in 
control of Church councils for the first three cen- 
turies, built up a system, in many ways resem- 
bling earlier cults. Catholic Christianity appro- 
priated much from Platonism, Mazdeism, Mani- 
chasism, Gnosticism and Judaism, not alone in doc- 
trines and rites, but also in personalities. The 
Messiah, or Christ, of Catholic Christianity, the 
Primitive Man of Manichaeism, of the Ebionites 
and of Gnostic Christianity, and the Logos of 
Platonism, had their models in the demi-gods of 
all mythologies, in Melchizedek and the "Sons of 



DUALISM 275 

God" of the Pentateuch and Mithra in Iranean 
Mithraism. Likewise Mary of Catholic Chris- 
tianity, Helena of the Samaritan Christian Gnos- 
tics and Sophia of the Greek, and the Great 
Mother of the Manichreans, had their prototypes 
in Ishtar of Babylonia, Astarte and Aphrodite of 
Syria, Athena of Greece, Isis of Egypt. Chris- 
tianity thus became a syncretism of the doctrines 
of other and earlier cults, holding to pagan poly- 
theism and Persian dualism. — Christ and the Holy 
Ghost in the Christian trinity were in this manner 
made persons and not attributes. 

Dualism, or its opposite principle — monism, lies 
at the bottom of many important propositions in 
physics, is fundamental in metaphysics, ethics and 
theology. Let us call up a number of the truly 
great thinkers of the past that they may briefly 
and characteristically express, or reiterate, their 
opinions bearing on this subject.* — 

BRAHMA (B. C. 4500). 

"And the Supreme Brahma created the world, 
the seas, and the heavens above. And he made a 
man and a woman and put them on an island. 
And the island (Ceylon) was beautiful, for all 
manner of fruits and flowers grew upon it. And 
the Supreme Brahma was pleased with the man 
and woman whom he had created and said: 'Let 
them have a period of courtship, for it is my de- 
sire and will that true love shall forever precede 

* Excerpts are set in quotation marks ; epitomes of 
opinion are not. — The Publishers. 



276 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

marriage.' . . . Then these two were mar- 
ried by the Supreme Brahma and he named the 
man Adami, and the woman Heva and said to 
them : 'Remain here ; you must not leave this 
island.' And in a short time after the Supreme 
Brahma had blest and left them, Adami said to 
Heva: 'I will go to the northward and see what 
lies beyond this island.' And so when Adami 
reached the end of the island the Devil produced 
a mirage and pictured to him a more beautiful 
land beyond. And Adami returned to Heva and 
said : 'The country over there is better than this, 
let us go thither.' And Heva said: 'No, we have 
all we need ; let us remain here.' But Adami beck- 
oned to her and said : 'We will go.' And so Heva 
followed him, and they came to a narrow neck of 
land and passed over, and lo •! the neck of land 
was immediately submerged, the mirage disap- 
peared and they stood on the mainland, and it 
was not as the Devil had portrayed, for it was 
rocky, barren and bleak. Then the Supreme 
Brahma approached and cursed them for their 
disobedience. And Adami raised his head and 
said : 'Curse me, but curse not the woman ; it was 
not her fault, it was mine.' And the Supreme 
Brahma said: 'I will save the woman, but not 
thee.' Then the woman, in tears, spake and said: 
'If thou wilt not spare him, neither me; I do not 
wish to live without him, for I love him.' Then 
the Supreme Brahma had compassion for them 
and said: 'I will spare you both, and watch over 



DUALISM 277 

you and your children forever, and the Evil One 
shall not again deceive you.' " 

moses (b. c. 1300). 
"And the Lord God formed man of the dust of 
the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the 
breath of life, and man became a living soul. 
Of every tree of the garden thou mayest 
freely eat; but of the tree of knowledge of good 
and evil thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day 
that thou eatest of it thou shalt surely die." 

ZOROASTER (b. C 1000). 

Good and evil powers have existed from all eter- 
nity. From the conflict between these powers 
came the visible creation, and all animated things 
are stamped with the characteristics of these op- 
posing and creative forces. Man is free to choose 
between them ; in the end Light shall prevail over 
Darkness, — Ormuzd shall vanquish Ahriman. 

mithra (b. c. 900). 
Is not fire the source of all sensation? And if 
of sensation is it not the origin of thought? 

buddha (b. c. 650). 
Ah ! it was under the Bo-tree I conquered the 
Powers of Darkness and attained Nirvana. The 
senses and reason are inadequate, I believe in the 
essence of things — the illusion of forms. 

thales (b. c. 640). 
Water is the source or principle of all life. 



278 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

The world floats on this elemental fluid and ap- 
pears to be impregnated and energized by spirit. 

PYTHAGORAS (b. C. 580). 

Infinity may be demonstrated by numbers ; 
transmigration and immortality of soul may be 
inferred. We are indissolubly connected with 
and related to all forms of terrestrial life. Be 
kind to animals, love the blooming and fruitful 
tree! 

CONFUCIUS (b. c. 550). 
I believe in the unity of the Supreme Being: 
The brotherhood of man should be realized in our 
minds and hearts. — "What you do not like when 
done to yourself, do not do to others." 

ANAXIMENES (b. C. 520). 

Air is the source of life, when we breathe we 
inhale universal life. 

HERACLITUS (b. C. 500). 

Universal reason pervades nature and becomes 
conscious in man. Eternal flux and change the 
sole actuality — there is no rest or quiet. 

XENOPHANES (b. C 500). 

There is one God, greatest among gods and 
men, neither in shape nor in thought like unto 
mortals. There is unity in being — the all is One 
and the One is God. Apparent diversity of being 
is but attributes of being. 



DUALISM 279 

EMPEDOCLES (b. C. 490). 

In all things I see two principles, one is Love 
and the other Hate. One attracts, the other re- 
pels. Love holds to unity, hate ends in segrega- 
tion and dissolution. Make reason your master, 
do not trust the evidence of your senses. 

SOCRATES (B. C. 471). 

Moral distinctions are real and possibly eter- 
nal. The aim of philosophy is to attain knowl- 
edge of right conduct. Truth realized in specu- 
lation is science. 

DEMOCRITUS (b. C 470). 

Do not look in the clouds for Deity, behold him 
in the atom ! If you are immortal it is because 
the atoms of which your body is composed are 
psychic. There are but two things in the uni- 
verse, — atoms and the void. 

plato (b. c. 427). 
We can affirm nothing of matter, mind is the 
sole reality — ideas alone exist. 

ARISTOTLE (fi. C 384). 

Right action is prudential, evil lies in extremes. 
Excellence grows by the contemplation of perfec- 
tion and the beautiful. Intellect, or spirit, and 
sense must ever be corporeal. 

pyrrho (b. c. 360). 
It is vain to speak of dualism in nature when 
we know nothing of nature; we have no sure tes- 



280 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

timony even to the reality of things less hidden 
and less remote. We can not rely on the evidence 
of our senses else objects would not appear differ- 
ently to different individuals. We can not rely 
on our judgment, for the judgments of men on 
even commonplace subjects and touching familiar 
objects do not agree, and reason is not uniform 
in her conclusions. We do not know if the quali- 
ties we ascribe to objects really appertain to them 
or depend upon our senses — whether they are in 
the objects or in our minds. We have absolutely 
no criterion of truth, therefore we can affirm noth- 
ing! 

EPICURUS (b. c. 342). 
There is no dualism in matter; all that exists 
is corporeal — the intangible does not exist. Sen- 
sation is a property of matter. 

cicero (b. c. 106-45). 

(From his Vision of Scipio) 
"Do not consider yourself, but your body, to 
be mortal. For you are not the being which this 
corporeal figure evinces ; but the mind of every 
man is the man, and not that form which may be 
delineated with a finger. Know therefore that 
you are a divine person. Since it is divinity that 
has consciousness, sensation, memory, and fore- 
sight, — that governs, regulates, and moves that 
body over which it has been appointed, just as the 
Supreme Deity rules the world ; and in like man- 
ner as an eternal God guides this world, which in 



DUALISM 281 

some respects is perishable, so an eternal spirit 
animates your frail body." 

LUCRETIUS (b. c. 98-55). 

From space and atoms came visible creation. 
Animal and vegetable life arose from heat and 
moisture. Spirit is a property of matter. There 
is no evidence of a future life. 

JESUS OF NAZARETH. 

And the devil took me up into a high moun- 
tain and showed me all the kingdoms of the world 
and said unto me: "All this power will I give 
thee, and the glory of them, for that is delivered 
unto me, and to whom-so-ever I will give it. If 
thou, therefore, will worship me, all shall be 
thine." And I said unto him, get thee behind me, 
Satan, for it is written, thou shalt worship the 
Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve. 

SAINT CLEMENT OF ROME (a. D. 96-?). 

Behold! I see God standing in the clouds, with 
outstretched arms, holding Jesus in his right 
hand and Satan in his left ! 

JUSTIN MARTYR (a. D. 100-167). 

The Hebrew prophecies are fulfilled in Jesus. 
Jesus is the Logos of Plato. The Kingdom of 
righteousness shall prevail. 

SAINT IGNATIUS (a. D. 117?). 

The world is in the grip of death, the Powers 
of Darkness envelop it. By sacrifice alone can 



282 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

righteousness be made a saving power among 
men; we shall find God and Jesus in martyrdom. 
"Come fire and cross and grapplings with wild 
beasts, wrenching of bones, hacking of limbs, 
crushings of my whole body; only be it mine to 
attain unto Jesus Christ." 

lucian (a. d. 120-180). 
Good and evil principles are not inherent in 
nature, they are conventional in character. 
Banish man from the world and "Good and Evil" 
will no longer exist ! 

apuleius (a. d. 125-?). 
Dualism is everywhere apparent. Every prop- 
osition that can be made has an opposite or con- 
trary notion. 

celsus (a. d. 178- ?) 
Why do the Jews mock the gods of the Greeks ? 
Before Moses they were polytheists ; they be- 
lieved in demons and magic, they had their ora- 
cles. They worshiped their Jehovah, demons 
and angels on Horeb, as the Greeks worship Zeus 
and the lesser divinities on Olympus. That Je- 
sus, the Jew, is the Son of the Creator God and 
came to bind Satan is impossible, — hence by 
faith can only be believed ! 

SAINT CLEMENT OP ALEXANDRIA (a. D. 150-230). 

Good and Evil in their own natures are infinite, 
matter is eternal. Christianity is a philosophy. 



DUALISM 283 

Plato was an incarnation of Moses ; the Logos is 
the Son of God. 

TERTULLIAN (a. D. 155-220). 

God and righteousness are enthroned above, 
Satan and the fires of hell rage beneath our feet! 

origen (a. d. 185-254)). 
The Powers of Evil control us, — crucify the 
flesh — emasculate yourselves for Jesus' sake! 

SAINT CYPRIAN (a. D. 200-258). 

"We are but pilgrims and strangers here be- 
low, let us then welcome the day that gives to us 
the joys of heaven. What exile longs not for his 
native land? Our true native land is Paradise. 
A large and loving company expects us there. 
Oh, the bliss of those celestial realms where no 
fear of dying enters ! There the glorious choir 
of the apostles, the exulting company of the 
prophets, the countless army of martyrs await 
us. To them let us eagerly hasten. Let us long 
to be with them the sooner, that we may the 
sooner be with Christ." 

plotinus (Platonist a. d. 204-270). 
God lies beyond sense and imagination. He is 
unthinkable. 

porphyry (Platonist a. D. 233-304). 
Infinity can not have personality. 

mani (a. d. 215-271). 
Satan created man with evil nature but with in- 



284 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

telligence ; the Primal Man came to free him from 
his evil nature. 

SAINT GREGORY (a. D. 325-389). 

Away with the Arian heresy, it is the child 
of hell! Evil is the dominating power in the 
world, the good exists only in potentiality. 

saint basil (a. d. 330-379). 

Oh, for the memory of Constantine! Julian 
is the prince of darkness — evil incarnate. O God, 
let my days be spent in the grottos of Cappado- 
cia removed from the presence of the evil one! 

saint jerome (a. d. 340-420). 

God and righteousness may be found in the 
monastery. O women, if you would cherish the 
virginity of Mary sequester yourselves from Sa- 
tan and the world ! Heresy is everywhere. Ori- 
gen was a heretic. The Gnostics were corruptors 
of the word. Christian doctrine was defined at 
Nicaea. To perdition with the Arians ! 

saint augustine (a. d. 354-430). 

When I would do good evil is present, the lusts 
of the flesh beset me. "O Lord, make me pure 
and chaste — but not yet" ! 

pelagius (a. d. 360-420). 

Away with the doctrine of Original Sin, of To- 
tal Depravity. The human soul is created as in- 
nocent as Adam was on the day of his creation. 
Sin came from ignorance, it is not inherent in our 



DUALISM 285 

nature. Death is not the penalty of sin but is 
the law of nature. 

PRISCILLIAN (A. D. ?-385). 

Live in contemplation of the goodness of God. 
Out upon marriage and carnal pleasures; it is 
the devil who made the world! 

POPE GREGORY THE GREAT (a. D. 540-604). 

The worship of the gods is devil-worship. To 
read pagan authors is to mingle the praises of 
Jupiter and Jesus. The oracles of God are suf- 
ficient, we no longer need the works of the philos- 
ophers and grammarians. Emperor Theodo- 
sius destroyed the library and serapeum of Alex- 
andria; Zeno burnt the library of Constantinople 
and that of Nisibis. Inspired by the example of 
these Christian princes let us put the torch to the 
library of Augustus yonder on the Palatine ! 

mahomet (a. d. 567-632). 
I believe in the unity of God. — "O my sons give 
not a partner unto God for polytheism is a great 
impiety" ! 

SCOTUS ERIGENA (a. D. 800-887). 

Theology and true philosophy are one. Evil 
is a variant of good, hell is in the mind. Devils 
are angels temporarily gone astray. All crea- 
tion is approaching a divine and harmonious 
unity. 

avicenna (a. d. 980-1037). 

I believe in the unity of God as the Koran 



286 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

teaches. I believe in the unity of the intellect — 
that my intellect is a part of the universal intel- 
lect. I believe with many of the Greeks that God 
and the universe are One and that all creation is 
an emanation from Him. 

ABELARD (a. D. 1079-1142). 

The Persons in the Trinity are attributes only. 
Satan is personified evil. 

averroes (a. d. 1126-1198). 

I believe in the unity of God. The spirit is 
immortal, its transition from the individual to the 
universal is instantaneous at death. 

EMPEROR FREDERICK II (a. D. 1194-1250). 

I hold to the unity of God and Nature. It is 
impossible that the Creator God can have been 
born of woman. The world has been deceived by 
three: — Moses, Jesus and Mahomet. 

SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS (a. D. 1227"1274). 

My body is matter differentiated and individu- 
alized. It is not to be reckoned as universal mat- 
ter. So with my spirit it will retain its person- 
ality and will not be lost in universal spirit. 
There is perfect harmony between reason and 
faith. 

dante (1265-1321). 
Good and Evil, God and Devil, Paradise and 
Hell are as real to me as are the Gulps and 
Ghibellines— the "Blacks and Whites." . . . 



DUALISM 287 

I saw disembodied souls in the torments of ma- 
terial fire! I saw the spirits of departed friends 
lying on the shores of Purgatory suffering the 
stings and bites of material insects ! And in 
Paradise ? Ah, Paradise ! — There is Beatrice, 
there the Holy Church Triumphant, there is Love, 
divine and immortal love — "The love that moves 
the sun and other stars" ! 

PETRARCH (1304-1374). 

Cogito, ergo Deus est. 
That God exists is a rational intuition. I be- 
lieve in the dualism of Mind and Matter, of Good 
and Evil. Matter may be one attribute of spirit 
but spirit can not be alone a property of matter. 
Spirit is transcendently and gloriously above 
this cold insensate world of matter. O 

glorious and immortal Cicero ! I follow in thy 
footsteps and crave to attain thy virtues. The 
Rome that thou didst love so well is vanishing. 
The world's new birth is dawning; would that I 
could give inspiration and direction to it as thou 
didst give ideals to thy countrymen and to the 
wise and great of all subsequent time. 

bocoaccio (1313-1375). 
It is love that subdues and shackles evil. — Ro- 
mantic love, the love of Fiammatta, of Aucassin 
and Nicolette. — The redeeming and saving love 
of Jesus for a dying world — the all transforming 
and transfiguring love ! 



288 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

ST. CATHERINE OF BOLOGNA (1413-1463). 

That the Powers of Darkness do prevail on 
earth I right well do know. By prayer to the 
saints in purgatory we are saved from venial and 
mortal sins. Those in purgatorial expiation are 
nearest us and know our temptations, — they hear 
and answer prayer! 

TORQUEMADA (1420-1498). 

Your belief destines your immortal soul to 
either heaven or hell. God is just, it is not He 
but your opinions that seal your fate. Those 
who deny or ignore the mercies of the Church 
should be given a foretaste of the suffering that 
awaits them. — Away with the heresiarchs to the 
torture-chamber of the Inquisition ! To the rack 
with the schismatics, apostates, infidels and here- 
tics ! punch out their eyes, — cut out their tongues, 
— will they not now renounce their error? Will 
they not recant? — Thrust firebrands beneath their 
legs ! 

MACHIAVELLI (1469-1527). 

Human nature is essentially evil. Evil pre- 
dominates in the natural world. The good is a 
negative condition — the absence of evil. Self in- 
terest is of first importance, this must find its 
glory in the state. Fortify yourselves against 
the perfidy of others by anticipation and decep- 
tion, — the end justifies the means. Encourage 
commerce that the people may be kept busy mak- 
ing money and out of politics. Foster religion 



DUALISM 289 

among the masses that they may be held submis- 
sive and obedient! 

copernicus (1473-1543). 

The world and its teeming life are mere inci- 
dents in the great scheme of the Solar System. 
This planet is moving swiftly through space in a 
well defined orbit around the sun, and there are 
other suns and revolving worlds. Pythagoras 
was right, Ptolemy and the Church wrong. I 
believe in matter and force, in motion and iner- 
tia. 

correggio (1494-1534). 

God is to be found in art. The beautiful is 
the good and this is revealed in form and color. 
I discern harmony in the dualism of nature and 
art. 

bruno (1548-1600). 
The unity of Mind and Matter is a fact of all 
existence. 

bacon (1561-1626). 
Science is iconoclastic, — down with your idols ! 
If you would learn truth interrogate Nature 
and her laws. Human nature cannot become 
altruistic. Individual happiness is the end of 
ethics. Good and Evil are relationships rather 
than essences. 

CAMPANELLA (1568-1639). 

There is no such thing as dead matter. God 



290 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

is sensation and sensation pervades all elements 
and all compounds. The physical universe pal- 
pitates with life — life seeking expression in form. 
The unity of all things is an ultimate fact. 

hobbs (1588-1697). 
There was no difference between men and tigers 
until the policeman made a difference. Moral 
distinctions largely arise from the civil laws, 
Good and Evil are relative terms. 

DESCARTES (1596-1650). 

Je pense, done je suis. 

I renounce all authority which comes from tra- 
dition. Truth lies in method. I believe in the 
unity and uniformity of Nature, and that the 
solar system was evolved from vortices of nebular 
matter, that there is only motion and extension 
in the objective world. Heat, odor, taste, light, 
sound, resistance and weight — qualities we attrib- 
ute to bodies — are really in ourselves, we simply 
conceive them in relation to ourselves. Attrib- 
utes cannot exist apart from their substance, 
spirit is an attribute. True, Mersenne, the 
Church believes otherwise and we must not op- 
pose the Church for she is doubtless right ! Gali- 
leo has seen too much through his telescope. 
Word has reached me from Rome that he must 
soon appear before the Inquisition. We must be 
careful ! 

spinoza (1632-1677). 

God exists only as realized in the Cosmos. The 



DUALISM 291 

Cosmos exists only as a manifestation of God. — 
God and Nature are one. 

locke (1632-1704). 
Good and Evil have their equivalents in pleas- 
ure and pain. The rule of probability should 
be applied to all propositions in theology or re- 
ligion. Ideas are not innate but acquired. 

SIR ISAAC NEWTON (1642-1727). 

Law is everywhere visible in nature, — cause and 
effect may be discerned throughout the universe. 

leibnitz (1646-1716). 
Space and time are merely relative, the former 
an order of co-existence, the latter of successions. 
The world is composed of infinite individual sub- 
stances or monads, these are forces in nature. I 
believe in the dualism of motion and inertia. 
Good and Evil exist, how would we know the good 
were it not for the presence of evil? 

VOLTAIRE (1694-1778). 

If matter be infinite it has one of the attrib- 
utes of the Supreme Being. If a void be impos- 
sible then matter exists of necessity and has ex- 
isted from all eternity. . . . Our knowledge 
of Christian revelation is based on tradition, tra- 
dition is a medley of fact and fiction. Satan? 
There is no such animal known in flesh or fos- 
sil! 

saint beauve (1664-1739). 

One God, one Christ, one Bishop, one King, 



292 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

this is the ideal condition. Attain this and we 
shall overcome all evil ! 

Milton (1608-1674). 
"One Almighty is from whom 
All things proceed, and up to Him return, 
If not depraved from good; created all 
Such to perfection, one first matter all, 
Endued with various forms, various degrees 
Of substance, and, in! things that live, of life ; 
But more refined, more spiritual, and pure, 
As nearer to Him placed, or nearer tending 
Each in their several active spheres assigned, 
Till body up to spirit work, in bounds 
Proportioned to each kind." . . . 

fenelon (1651-1751). 
The principles of Good and Evil are as old as 
Adam, they were planted in Eden. Overcome evil 
with good thoughts and good works. Perfec- 
tion lies in denial of self -hood — Christ is the re- 
deemer, not my redeemer. 

swedenborg (1688-1772). 
I hear voices from the spirit world. The Lord 
has manifested himself to me in person: I have 
seen heaven and hell with my own eyes ! I have 
been commissioned by the Lord to teach his doc- 
trines. 

BERKELEY (1685-1753). 

Sensible qualities are nothing else than ideas. 



DUALISM 293 

The soul is that unextended thing which thinks, 
acts and perceives. 

hume (1711-1776). 
Reason cannot transcend experience. There 
is no evidence of design in nature, no proof of a 
creator God. Religion is the child of fear. 

THOS. JEFFERSON (1743-1826). 

Happiness consists in the tranquillity of the 
mind, — happiness the aim of life ; virtue the foun- 
dation of happiness, utility the test of virtue. All 
religions are of tradition. 

lavoisier (1743-1794). 

I discern life in the minerals of which the earth's 
crust is formed, — God is in the molecules of the 
crystal ! I think I hear the atom say : I live ! 
I give the molecules of matter geometric form, 
structure, gravity, polarity, motion. I am in the 
nebulas, the gases, the aqueous vapor. I am in 
the primary substances of which the suns and 
planets are composed. I am in the molecules of 
all compounds, in those of the minerals that form 
the rocks of which the crust of the earth is com- 
posed. I reveal intelligence in the crystal! 

BENTHAM (1748-1832). 

Good and Evil are terms reducible to pleasur- 
able and painful consequences. The character of 
all acts should be determined by their conse- 
quences. A near good as in egoistic hedonism 



294 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

cannot be a chief good, it lacks in ultimate and 
general utility. 

lamarck (1744-1829). 

Form and structure are changed to conform 
to a persistent want, horns and claws have grown 
for defense. The Giraffe's neck has been length- 
ened by persistent stretching and desire to feed 
on the leaves and buds of the trees. Desires and 
acquired character are transmitted. The law of 
evolution is the law of nature. 

goethe (1749-1832). 

Nature is spirit visible ; spirit is invisible na- 
ture. Man is but a part of the cosmos, he can- 
not rise above nor go beyond the limitations of 
his nature. His fate lies hidden in the yet un- 
perceived forces of evolution. 

laplace (1749-1827). 
God is in the nebula. Give me space and nebula 
and I can make revolving suns and planets! 

HUMBOLDT (1769-1859). 
The unity of external nature may be inferred 
from an analysis of its component factors. God 
is to be found in this unity and his essence dis- 
cerned diffused in the homogeneity of the cos- 
mos. 

schelling (1775-1854). 
The physical world is an organism, it has vital- 
ity, it is sentient. Vegetable and animal life arose 



DUALISM 295 

out of the infusorial slimes. "Matter is frozen 
spirit, the cosmos a syncretism." 

AUGUSTE COMTE (1798-1857). 

We should not look for design in nature so much 
as law. 

hegel (1770-1831). 
Mind and matter are phenomenal 
modifications of the common substance. 

SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON (1778-1856). 

The common sense of mankind assures us of 
the existence of an external and extended world, 
however, nothing exists for us except in so far 
as it is known to us, — consciousness is co-exten- 
sive with knowledge. . . . The Absolute 
and the Infinite can each only be conceived as a 
negation of the thinkable. 

victor hugo (1802-1885). 
The existence of a Deity is not an intuition but 
inference. 

JOHN STUART MILL (1806-1873). 

Good and Evil exist in nature. God is good, 
therefore God is not omnipotent. 

strauss (1808-1874). 
Jesus of Judea was made to fulfill the expec- 
tation of the Jews who were looking for a king. 
He was made to fit the speculations of the 
Platonists and Gnostics. The doctrines of 
Mithra were pinned to Him and He is made to 



296 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

stand for myths and symbolism. I believe in 
the "dualism" of religion and philosophy. 

blackie (1809-1895). 

Morals vary under varying conditions of so- 
ciety as landscapes vary under changing condi- 
tions of solar light. Good and Evil are variable 
terms. 

SCHLEIDEN-SCHWANN (1804-1882). 

Life, sensation and intelligence may be dis- 
cerned in the plant. — God is in the nucleus of the 
protoplasmic cells of which the structure of the 
living plant is composed. 

Many plants have these functions : — The sense 
of sight, they perceive light and turn towards it. 
The sense of touch and attach themselves to ob- 
jects. The sense of taste, are insectivorous — 
carnivorous. Are mobile and have the faculty 
of choosing and determining direction. They 
have sex and sex sensation. They are susceptible 
to stimulation and irritation. Plant protoplasm 
possesses an inherent tendency towards higher 
organization and there is no fundamental differ- 
ence between the living substance of plants and 
animals. 

darwin (1809-1882). 

The end of morality is the conservation and 

preservation of life, it is therefore utilitarian. 

Creation is explained by the laws of evolution. 

From the lowest forms of sea organisms came, in 



DUALISM 297 

order, Fishes, Amphibians, Reptiles, Birds, Mar- 
supials, Mammals, Lemurs, Simians, Man. I dis- 
believe the Mosaic account of creation. 

HERBERT SPENCER (1820-1903). 

Our ideas are not innate, — they are the result 
of accumulated racial experiences now inherited. 
Conduct is good or bad according as its total ef- 
fects are pleasurable or painful. The constant 
and vital element in religion is mystery. God is 
the unknowable. The reality underlying ap- 
pearances is totally and forever inconceivable by 
us. The persistence of force is the ultimate basis 
of knowledge. While all is change yet there is 
constancy in the quantitative aspects of phenom- 
ena. 

buchner (1824-1899). 

I believe in the unity and infinitude of matter 
and force. Matter in its last analysis is Motion, 
and Motion is nothing else than Mind. 
huxley (1825-1895). 

It is conceivable that there should be no evil 
in the world, that which is conceivable is cer- 
tainly possible; if it were possible for evil to be 
non-existent, the maker of the world, who, though 
foreknowing the existence of evil in the world, did 
not prevent it, either did not desire it should not 
exist or could not prevent its existence. 
ingersoll (1833-1899). 

"We need no myths, no miracles, no gods, no 
devils." 



298 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

HAECKEL (1834 ). 

God is in the protoplasm, — in the cell. Animals 
(including man) and plants are composed of ele- 
mentary organisms endowed with the attributes 
of life. Man is the product of evolution, differen- 
tiated from inorganic substances by the chemical 
properties of the protoplasm in the living cells 
of which his body is composed. Mind is the phe- 
nomenon of brain cells and its fate is that of the 
brain. Disintegration and reconstruction is the 
order of all organisms. Reconstruction in excess 
of disintegration is growth, disintegration in ex- 
cess of reconstruction points to death and disso- 
lution. 

henri bergson (contemporary). 
Mind and matter have a common ancestry. 
Life is, more than anything else, a tendency to act 
on inert matter. Evolution is not effected by ex- 
ternal and extraneous influences ; it is due to an 
internal and psychological principle inherent in 
living organisms. This principle is dominant, 
transcendent and creative. 

Standing in the presence of* these renowned 
scholars and thinkers, representatives of the schol- 
arship of all historic time, and listening to their 
reiterated several and often contrary opinions, 
one feels that he dare not dogmatize on this im- 
portant subject. I sympathize with Pyrrho and 
his school of skeptics, — that there is no criterion 
of truth. However, it is our privilege, and duty 



DUALISM 299 

perhaps, to give serious consideration to the prob- 
lems involved and endeavor to solve them. The 
doctrine of the "Powers of Darkness" character- 
istic of theology and Christian ethics, inherited 
from Mazdeism, needs no consideration in this 
age of enlightenment. We know of no such 
powers. Darkness is but the absence of light — 
the natural condition of space, where not illumi- 
nated by radiant suns. 

However deeply seated in the human mind and 
breast the moral sense is now found, the good and 
evil, the right and wrong in morals are conditions 
largely created by the conventions of society and 
the laws of states. Hobbs says truly: "There 
was no difference between men and tigers until 
the policeman made a difference." And we may 
likewise agree with Lucian in affirming that were 
man banished from the world evil would go with 
him. 

Notwithstanding the apparent antagonism in 
nature we cannot say that nature is immoral. 
It is rather un-moral. Standing aside and con- 
templating the world as a revolving planet 
swiftly flying in, its orbit through space, such 
subjective relationships as East and West disap- 
pear. So when we steadfastly fix our attention 
on the operation of the laws of external nature 
we observe that the cruelty of tooth and claw is 
lost in an appetite seeking its prey. 

But that phase of dualism, a subject of meta- 
physics is much deeper. — Materialism says, Mind 



300 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

is Matter. Idealism affirms, Matter is Mind. If 
God is different in substance from the universe, 
He is the God of dualism. If He is of the same 
substance with the universe, He must be the God 
of Pantheism — of monism — Who knows? 

I do not seek to detract from the mission and 
influence of the Church. It has been built up 
by sacrifices and nurtured for centuries by the 
best thoughts and emotions we possess. It has 
been adorned by the highest beauty of art and 
her greatest work is yet to be done. This will 
come when she shall have turned her back on the 
mysticism and follies of her youth and given at- 
tention to moral and intellectual work. The 
supernaturalism and mysticism of Christianity, 
inherited from the Temples, belong to dreamy 
orientalism. These form no part of ethics and 
are not necessary to religion. 

I close this inquiry with this sentiment from 
an aphorism of Kant: "Two things fill my soul 
with wonder and reverence, increasing ever more 
as I meditate more closely upon them: the starry 
heavens above me and the moral law within me." 



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